


of lovers & nightmares

by dirigibleboyking



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Amnesia, Body Horror, Bottom Sam, Dark Dean Winchester, Hell Trauma, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s08e20 Pac-Man Fever, Protective Dean Winchester, Sick Sam Winchester, Top Dean, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 03:52:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5032684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirigibleboyking/pseuds/dirigibleboyking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean loses his memories. Guess what happens next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this takes place in a gap, which totally existed, between Pac-Man Fever and The Great Escapist. I make no apologies. I also want to make something perfectly clear: this contains disturbing descriptions of violence, particularly in chapter seven. If you're squeamish, proceed with caution.

Clearly he got hit by a baseball bat last night. He's groaning as he hauls himself up from the floor, head throbbing, the cold air raising goosebumps on his arms. When he prods gingerly over his own torso- it's pitch-dark, he's going by feel- there's a few sore spots, solid flesh, alien and unfamiliar.

He reaches back for what happened and draws a total blank.

The man presses his hands to his temples, getting slowly to his feet. When he stretches his arms out they connect with the iron bars of some sort of shelf, and he inches forward with his hands pressed to it, dust furring his fingertips as he goes.

Eventually he somehow finds a doorknob, and twists, and the square of darkness pushes outwards. He's looking out at a corridor; dim, with tiled walls. Maybe it's just spidey sense, but he reckons they're underground. Then he wonders why he thought _they_. He's the only person in sight- what is this, a nuclear bunker or something? Has the world ended?

It doesn't seem at all strange to him that he's wearing jeans; that he's broad with thick, stocky muscles under pale skin. He's probably pretty tall, and when he reaches up to touch his hair the bristly shortness isn't a surprise, but it's not familiar, either.

At the end of the corridor there's another door. He hesitates before pushing this one open; it creaks long and low, opening into what looks like a library. Lights are on, reflected in the wood of a mahogany table- and over that table's draped the facedown form of a guy, long hair pooling on the wood, arms over his head. He's snoring faintly, little snuffling noises, and there's a blanket draped over him. _Protectively_ , the man thinks. He has no idea why.

For a second- the tiniest second- he's about to just cut and run. Then he realises no, wait, the dude probably knows something, and so he stands there for a second.

Then he goes up to the guy, yanks the blanket off him, and says, 'Okay, man, who roofied who?'

The guy twitches awake like he's been electrocuted. He looks round and lets out a long breath when he sees who it is. 'Oh. Dean.'

The man isn't sure what he's expecting of this guy, but it isn't for him to just flop back over the table and close his eyes.

And- also- ' _Dean_?'

The long-haired guy opens his eyes again. Then he pushes himself into a sitting position, yawning, and when his features settle again it turns out he's pretty. Goddamn _beautiful_.

Without looking round he says, 'Dean. Stop staring at me.'

'Is that my name? Dean?'

The other guy stops mid-stretch.

Dean- if that really is his name- says, 'Look, man, would you mind telling me what's going on here?'

The long-haired guy frowns. 'What d'you mean?' And it's like he doesn't know, like he has no idea that he- Dean?- woke up achy and cold and with an empty brain, but he has to know something, he _has_ to, because he knows his _name_ , right- so Dean just fists his hands in the front of the guy's shirt and drags him to his feet (and _whoa_ is he tall) and says, 'Fucking tell me what I'm doing here or I'll fucking gut you.'

The guy just stares at him with these big shocked eyes. 'Dean,' he says.

'Where am I?'

'Th- the bunker, we- we _live_ here-' he breaks off. 'You really have no idea?'

'And who the hell is we?'

'Us. You and me. Dean, what's g-'

'Okay- who are _you_?'

Dean actually feels kind of bad as soon as he says it. The guy looks scared and horrified and- _ill_ , he realises. Pale, tired-eyed, nose faintly pink. He's delicate-featured, lean and tall as hell, and his hair's this funny silky mop.

Dean steps away, releases him, and the guy grips the edge of the table. 'I'm Sam,' he says quietly. 'Your brother.'

Looking him over, Dean says, 'Younger.'

Sam nods tentatively. 'D'you- remember at all now?'

'No,' says Dean. 'You just look younger than I feel.'

Sam nods again, clearly upset, biting his lip, and Dean turns away. The guy's basically a stranger. He doesn't want to watch a stranger crumble in front of him.

But Sam just takes a deep breath and sits on the edge of the table. 'What happened?'

'How should I know? I woke up in the dark, came out here, that's it.'

The younger man digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing, leaving the fragile skin red and raw. Dean gets a random urge to swat his hands away. 'Okay. Uh. You were looking through the old Men Of Letters stuff, I think.'

Men Of what? Dean doesn't ask. 'Okay, and?'

'Come on,' says Sam tiredly. 'Let's go and see. Maybe you got hexed. Or something.' He moves towards the door.

'Sam,' Dean calls after him. 'If we're brothers, what are we doing living together? Where's our family?'

Sam hesitates, then says, 'If we don't get your memories back within twenty-four hours, I'll tell you.'

*

They spend hours hunting through files and boxes of strange things, wooden idols and antique guns and, once, a little pouch that Sam rips out of his hand immediately ('That's a curse, Dean!') There are stacks of paper everywhere, and dust flies up whenever they move anything.

After a few hours Sam starts sneezing.

'You got allergies or something, kid?' Dean asks after the fortysomethingth time. Sam sneezes into his wrist again. 'No. No, I think it's just- immune system down or something.'

Dean considers asking if he's ill, then decides against it. Hey, Sam wasn't the one waking up with no memories, was he?

Sam sneezes thirty-four more times before they stop looking.

Dean counts every single one.

*

They sit round the table in the library and Dean ignores his building hunger.

'Monsters are real,' says Sam tiredly.

Dean's not surprised. 'All of them, right?'

'Uh, pretty much, we think.' Sam debriefs him on hunting, and the knowledge settles inside Dean; it's not recognition, but it's close enough. These things Sam's saying, wendigos and spirits and demons, it _fits_.

When his brother hands him a gun, Dean dismembers it in five seconds.

From what Sam says- and it's not much- Dean puts together a picture. They've been hunting together for almost their whole lives, but the bunker's a new thing. He doesn't talk about their family, and Dean decides not to push it. For now.

He can't stop his gaze skating over Sam as he talks. Sam's long, nervous fingers tapping the desk. The satiny gleam of his unruly hair. Bare feet. Legs for days. Occasionally he scratches the pointed end of his nose.

Sam talks of monsters.

He never mentions lovers or nightmares or fear, but they all crawl into his words anyway.

 


	2. Chapter 2

That night, Dean knows off the bat that no way is he getting any sleep. He pokes round the kitchen awhile, finding a burger in the fridge (which he inhales), a load of different kinds of tomatoes (also inhaled), a box of fake IDs (shoved quickly back onto the shelf so he can pretend it didn't exist), and, uh, an axe. In the sink. With blood on it. Just kind of _lying_ there.

He picks it gingerly up between finger and thumb and carries it through to where Sam is hunched over the table.

' _What is this_?' he demands.

Sam looks up and shrugs. 'No idea. You probably ditched it there after a hunt.'

Oh, no. Dean isn't doing this. There's an axe, a _bloody_ axe, in his _sink_ , and Dean is _so done_ with this shit, with the black pits inside his brain where memories ought to be, with this stupidly attractive guy with his stupidly attractive ass who claims- _claims_ \- to be his kid brother, who for some reason is still living with him at the age of, what, _thirty_? And is it just him, or does Dean detect a faint whiff of incest? Like, come on, Sam won't tell him anything about them. Like what they're doing together.

It's all looking really fucking fishy.

'An _axe_ , Sam,' he says, enunciating clearly. 'In our _sink_.'

Sam gives him a bored look and goes back to work.

So Dean walks over to the table and slams the axe down into the wood in front of Sam's hands.

It stays there, quivering.

'A fucking axe,' says Dean, 'in the fucking _sink_ ,' and then Sam's getting to his feet and putting his hands on Dean's shoulders and kind of steering him into a chair and then Dean realises he seems to be having some kind of _panic attack_ , and the thought is so ridiculous that it actually makes him laugh and that just makes it _worse_ , and then Sam vanishes and reappears carrying a bottle and five fingers of whisky in a glass.

Dean downs them in one. He's sweating.

After a while, Sam settles into the chair opposite. He looks horrible- pale and shaky- but Dean feels pretty horrible as well, okay, so sorry if he's not anxious to join the pity party.

'Sorry,' he says.

'It's fine,' says Sam.

So, yeah, he doesn't sleep. He goes to his room, looks through his things. _Who are you, Dean Winchester?_ It's all orderly and neat. There's a slice of pie on a plate on the nightstand, and it looks pretty okay so Dean eats it. An antique scimitar and a few guns adorn the walls. There's a box of porn magazines under the bed- _alphabetised_.

On his desk, a photo of a family.

He turns that face-down without looking.

*

The next day is when Dean tries to kiss Sam.

This is where it goes _really_ wrong.

*

Sam's asleep again, head on the table, when Dean comes out the next morning. Clearly it's a habit. He swats him on the back of the head.

'Rise and shine, princess,' he says, once Sam's stopped twitching. His brother rubs blearily at his eyes, peers up through tumbled hair. He looks worse than last night.

'So, tell me, Sam,' says Dean, sitting down. 'You actually have a bedroom? Or is this it?'

Sam blinks. 'No, uh- I have a room. I just... y'know.'

'And one other thing. Where the hell do we get food? I'm guessing there ain't a 7-Eleven nearby?'

Sam shakes his head. 'We drive out. Make a run. Why, are we low?'

'Unless we usually get by on canned beef? Yeah, pretty low.'

He waits for Sam to offer to drive him. Sam does.

*  
'So tell me,' says Dean. 'How'd we get like this?'

He's not expecting the level of reaction the question gets. The car swerves a little, and Sam closes his eyes briefly.

'Long story,' he says at last.

'Come on, man, you gotta give me more than that.'

Sam smiles tightly, keeping his eyes on the road. 'Dean, you wouldn't believe me.'

'Right now I'll believe anything, man. Hell, I'd believe you if you said Paris Hilton's boobs were real.'

'You would not.'

'No,' he admits. 'I wouldn't. But come on, man, try me.'

Sam pulls the car over and sighs.

'What do you believe,' he says, 'about Hell?'

Dean shrugs. 'Fire and brimstone. Small town in Norway. What about it?'

Sam gives him this long, pitying, puppy-eyed gaze, and Dean feels inexplicably irritated. 'Man. Enough of this. Just fucking _tell_ me. I deserve to know.'

And when Sam still doesn't say anything- when he just sits there, biting his lip, looking at Dean, the circles under his eyes making him look tired and sick and sad- that's when Dean leans over and kisses him.

It isn't that he can't hold back. It isn't that he thinks Sam's lying about them being brothers. It's just an impulse, a moment of _oh, fuck it_ recklessness, a sudden half-affectionate desire for Sam's soft dry lips, the wet heat of his mouth. The way Sam looks at him all doey-eyed is familiar and sweet and strange and screw it, he can give himself this, and it can be just like trying to kiss a stranger, just a teasing thing, an easily-rejected come-on. This doesn't have to be complicated.

And then, even though Dean's tongue is pretty much halfway down his throat, Sam does something that Dean should probably have seen coming, and he freaks the fuck out.


	3. Chapter 3

All at once Sam shoves Dean off him, yanking madly at the door handle, practically throwing himself out of the car. He lands on his ass and it's almost funny.

Dean gets out, hands held up. 'Sam.'

Sam staggers to his feet, backs away. 'Don't.' His lips are red and bitten. 'Don't. You have no idea. No _idea_.'

'Sam, let's talk about this-'

'Dean, goddammit, we aren't- aren't- you know! We're _brothers_ , Dean!'

'Yeah, Sam, kinda got that last part-'

'So quit looking at me like I'm-'

A spasm of coughing forces Sam to break off. It's an awful, chesty, congested cough into a balled-up fist, and it goes on and on. After a minute Sam drops to one knee, swaying a little, still coughing, and Dean stands there and clenches and unclenches his palms. There's at least a metre of space between them.

When it ends, Sam wipes his hand quickly on his jeans and gets painfully to his feet. There's grit embedded in the fabric at his knees. He rubs his watering eyes. Dean has no fucking clue what he should be doing.

Fuck it, Old Him would know.

'Like I'm a piece of meat,' Sam mutters at last, his voice wrecked.

They both get back in the car. The rest of the drive is completed in silence.

*  
At the grocery store, Dean doubtfully asks Sam what he, Dean, likes.

For a moment he thinks Sam's going to be a little bitch and not say anything- did Dean mess them up that bad?- but then, quite unexpectedly, Sam smiles.

'You liked bananas,' he says, poking at a tin of Spaggheti-Os. 'Total health freak. Always on about fat and fibre and protein content.' He shakes his head. 'God, the things I went through getting you to touch the Christmas cake.'

Dean frowns. 'Really?' He doesn't _feel_ vegan.

'No. Not really.' When Sam clears his throat, Dean watches its faint undulation. 'Your stomach was a garbage disposal. And you loved pie.' He smiles a little. 'Not a bad cook, though.'

'Huh.'

Sam looks up, and then he doesn't say anything else, though Dean would have liked to hear it.

He can't get used to this. He doesn't know this man, doesn't even love him, but he needs him like he needs oxygen. It isn't that he can't believe they're brothers; he just can't believe they've never fucked around. I mean, personally he's wanted to pick Sam up and flip him over pretty much since the moment he saw him. And, hell, he looked at himself in the mirror last night- he ain't bad-looking himself. By a long shot.

But Sam hasn't given any indication of feeling the same. God- and he's just realising this- Sam seems to have a hard time even _looking_ at him right now, but that's probably his own fault.

They head for the checkout with a basketload of crap food, and only as they're leaving does it occur to Dean to ask. 'What do you like, Sam?'

Sam doesn't look up. 'Mm?'

'Food. What do you like? You didn't say.'

'Oh. It doesn't matter. You always thought it was dumb anyways.' Sam kind of smiles to himself, but it's gone as soon as it appears.

They load the shopping into the back of the car. It's a sleek black muscle car, trunk big enough to hide a body in; pretty goddamn cool if you ask Dean. Sam seems to think so too- when he'd first led Dean out to see it he stood back expectantly, as if he was waiting for something to happen.

'What d'you think?' he'd said when Dean didn't say anything.

'Yeah, cool,' he'd said, rather blankly, 'awesome,' and Sam had visibly wilted, but seriously, what was Dean _meant_ to say?

When they've loaded up the car- 'It's an Impala,' Sam corrects him, 'a 67' Chevy Impala,'- they get in, Sam in the driver seat.

Remembering the coughing fit, Dean says doubtfully, 'Sure you're okay to drive?'

'Yeah,' Sam says, and puts the car into gear. 'Sure.'

*

Turns out that Dean may not remember his little brother, but he sure remembers how to make a damn good burger. Flipping the meat in the kitchen, he feels almost content. The sizzle of the pan, the burned spatula in his hand, the cold air drifting through a basement window to cut through the warm fug- this is right. He _knows_ this.

He loads up the plates and carries them through. The library's empty. He's barely set the plates on the table, though, when something just- just _hits_ him-

There's a guy, an older guy, a guy named Bobby, and he's like a father to them.

*

When Dean comes to, he's on the floor. His mouth tastes like dirty pennies.

He gets slowly to his knees, wincing. 'Sam?' he shouts. 'Sam!'

A clatter, and the distant pounding of feet, and then Sam's there grabbing at Dean and helping him to his feet. 'Dean? What is it? Are you okay?'

'Y-yeah,' he says shakily. There's blood in his mouth. He must have bit his tongue. 'Sam- I remembered something. Bobby.'

'Bobby?' Sam looks shaken. He steers Dean into a seat. 'You remember him?'

'Yeah- kind of- there are peices missing.'

'Is that it, though? Are you sure you don't remember- anything else?' and Dean could just strangle him because the hope in those huge fucking eyes. 'No, Sam. Sorry. Just Bobby.'

Sam opens his mouth to speak, but Dean cuts him off. 'Listen, buddy, okay? I remember the guy, I do. I remember his dumb hat and his wheelchair phase and his zombie wife. But you want specifics? I just got flashes, man. No events or anything.'

Sam had to have been expecting it, but his face still falls and, guess the fuck what, Dean still feels like a total douche.

'Our lives, man,' he says. 'Just look at our fucking lives.'

His little brother cards a shaky hand through thick hair that Dean itches to get his hands into.

*

That night, they eat in silence. Sam manages nearly three bites. Dean scarfs his burger down, then eats Sam's.

Sam leaves the table early to go poke through the Men Of Letters records some more, try and find out what the hell happened to Dean. And Dean- he goes down to the shooting range.

He punches hole after hole dead centre of the target. It's weirdly therapeutic, and he doesn't even notice Sam until someone taps on his shoulder and there he is, looking dusty and sneezy as shit, snuffling into his jumper sleeve but grinning.

Dean puts down the gun. 'Yeah, Sam?'

'I found it,' says Sam, 'Dean, God, I fucking found it,' and then he kind of stumbles and Dean realises his nose is bleeding, and Sam steadies himself against the wall and presses a hand to his nose and looks kind of surprised when it comes away a ghastly shade of red. But he holds onto the box in his hand like it's the goddamn Holy Grail.

Dean's arm is round Sam by now, awkwardly, trying not to let him fall. 'Whoa, whoa. C'mon, gimme that.' And Sam hands over the box and cups both hands over his face because, guess the fuck what, his nose is still bleeding, and they somehow get upstairs like that, and then Sam kind of lunges into the bathroom and locks the door before Dean can follow.

He bangs hard on the oak. 'Sam. Don't be a little bitch about this.'

'Dean, you're a germophobe.' His voice is muffled and slightly nasal, like he's pinching his nostrils closed. 'You don't wanna be doing this. Go away and look in the box.'

'Sam, come on.'

'Go look in the damn box, Dean.'

Dean hesitates, because he's got a pretty good idea of what Old Him would be doing, and it sure as hell isn't fucking off while his precious little brother bleeds all over the bathroom. But what the hell, it's just a nosebleed and no-one ever died from a nosebleed, they're _hunters_ or whatever, they don't get _coddled_ , _Jesus_ , so in the end Dean goes back to his room. He sits on his bed and opens the box.

He's surprised at how calm he is, even though its contents are going to determine basically his whole goddamn life. But he's not even breaking a sweat as he looks through its contents.

This memory thing- it's a hex, it turns out. There's a hex-bag sitting there on top, and then a few yellowed pages clearly ripped from some spellbook. Dean has a moment of thinking he's forgotten how to fucking read as well, but it turns out the pages are in Latin or something. He can pick out a word here and there, but not read it read it. Luckily, there's a translation, tucked beneath those pages on a few bits of lined paper. Still pretty yellowed. Probably about sixty years old.

It turns out that, what a shock, this isn't your run-of-the-mill hex. Burning the bag isn't going to cut it (and hey, it's not like Dean didn't already figure that, because otherwise Sam would have torched the fugly thing the second he found it). They have to do a spell to break it, like they're goddamn _witches_ , a spell involving cat's teeth and bezoars and more latin and- what the hell is a manticore? And how do you get hold of its eye?

He's about to turn round and ask Sam when he realises, shit, Sam's still in the bathroom. And he's been in there for a damn long time.

*

Dean pounds on the bathroom door. 'Sam.'

No answer.

He's worried, but he just knocks louder. 'Sam. Sam-u-el.'

Nothing.

The rush of panic is shocking- probably a reflex. But whatever the reason, there's enough adrenaline behind his kick to flatten the door first time, and he charges in.

It takes him a second to see Sam. A guy that tall, you wouldn't think he could fold up like that. But he's crumpled into the space between the toilet and the sink, skin a godawful dirty corpse-white, and the blood is- god, it's streaking his chin and coating his hands in shining red and puddling on the floor and Dean only has to look at it to know that there's too much, there's too fucking much.

He grabs Sam under the arms and hoists him up onto the toilet seat and Sam's head is lolling back, eyes glassy, and Dean slaps him gently. 'Hey. Hey. Stay with me.'

'Not... Dean,' Sam groans.

Shit. 'Yeah, whatever. Pinch your goddamn nose.' Only Dean ends up doing it for him, supporting Sam the whole while, and it takes another two minutes to stop bleeding.

'You need a hospital,' he says, when he can finally toss the wadded-up tissue into the bin. Sam's head hangs down, hair falling over his bloodied face. 'How'd this happen?'

'It's fine,' Sam says in a faint voice. 'I get them sometimes. No big deal.'

' _No big deal_? There's a puddle on the floor the size of the frigging _canyon_ , Sam.'

Sam breathes in. Then he pushes himself into a standing position, keeping hold of the cistern. 'Dean,' he says, earnestly, 'you have to do this. Look after me, I mean. Not while you're-' he gestures- 'dealing with your own shit. It's okay. I'm okay.'

'Yeah, save it,' says Dean. 'You can't conk out on me now, unless we've got any manticore eyes in the fridge.'

Sam frowns.

'Yeah, Sam,' says Dean, and grins. 'I found us a mission. How 'bout that, huh?'


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is finally, FINALLY up. I can promise that the wait for Chapter Five will be much shorter. Thanks for sticking around, y'all- and especially to littledinoo for actually reminding me to write the damn thing, because otherwise I'd probably still be on a hundred words.

The real shitty thing about manticores, Dean quickly discovers, is that they devour their vics _whole_. No distinctive handprints, clawmarks, or flashes of light. Not even the damn courtesy to leave a couple scraps of bloodstained fabric behind, and come the fuck _on_.

On the upside, Sam- who has two bits of toilet tissue stuffed up his nose to stem the bleeding, and that's kind of gross and kind of adorable- says they're kind of hard to miss. That's the upside of creatures with lion bodies, human heads, and shark teeth. 'We're lucky, actually. A few years back, they were only ever seen in India.'

'What changed?'

Sam's smile slips a little. Since Dean hauled him out of the bathroom and made him take a nap he's been pale, a little woozy-looking, but still basically functional. Dean's almost tempted to leave him behind when he finally locates a manticore, but he knows how dumb a move that would be- Sam may not be feeling so hot, but he's Dean's number one source of information.

Right now he's tapping away at the laptop keys, determinedly not looking at Dean while he answers. 'Some crap happened. Three years ago. After that, everything got kinda out of whack. Lamias in Wisconsin, okamis in North Dakota. Shifters turning regardless of the moon. Never really got straightened out.'

'Jesus,' Dean says. 'What the hell happened?'

There's a silence. Sam stares at the screen, then up at Dean. 'I screwed up,' he says, and his tone is open and noncommital.

Old Dean, he knows, would have left it there.

He is not Old Dean.

'You gotta give me more than that,' he says.

Sam had to have known this was coming, because he squeezes his eyes closed. 'Dean, man.'

'You can't keep me in the dark about this shit. You're _ill_.'

His brother flushes. Embarassed. 'I'm fine.' Then, louder, 'You wouldn't believe me, Dean.'

'You haven't _tried_ , Sam!'

Livid pink blotches appear high up on Sam's cheekbones. He shuts the laptop and for a second Dean thinks he's about to walk out, but instead he says, 'Look, Dean, I'll call up a few other hunters. See if they've heard of anything that might fit the bill, okay?'

Dean ignores him, staring at the table. He ignores Sam's little pained exhale. He also ignores how Sam stumbles when he gets up too quickly. His body is primed to act as a safety net, but he tamps down the protective urges with an ease that should probably worry him.

For the next few hours, Dean hunts through old lore books for how to kill manticores. Trouble is, they're rarely mentioned, and usually only in conjunction with other creatures. He keeps at it, though, and begins to painstakingly compile a list of possibles. Some say you stab it in the mouth. Some say you stab it with a silver blade blessed by a _rajpurohit_ ; some say it can be killed by nailing it to a temple ceiling and burning it alive.

One book says you kill it by beating it to death with an eggplant.

He looks round to tell Sam, just for kicks, before remembering- Sam vanished off somewhere to make calls.

He knows Sam is in his room. Sam's room is very close by. His door might even be open.

Dean lets himself imagine it anyway.

He could go in there, lean against the doorway, just take in the sight for a minute. Sam would be lying full-length along his stomach, tapping away at that damn laptop, and Dean would, for a second, have an uninterrupted view of his ass.

Then Sam would register his presence, turn onto his back, smile. Scrape hair out of his eyes. 'Hey, Dean.' A normal greeting, and what Dean would do next would come as a shock- when Dean covered the room in a bound and pressed his lips to Sam's, reliving the feel of them, soft and a little chapped, already bitten. And Sam would respond, opening to him, their tongues twining and fingers tangling together as Dean crawled over him, Sam suckling on Dean's lower lip, Dean gripping Sam's jaw.

Sam's breath warm over Dean's nipple. A hand on his slick cock, jerking him fast and dirty, fingers tangling in his pubic hair. Dean taking his brother in his mouth, sensations punching desperate noises from him, pinning his hands behind him as he sucked him all the way down. Sam, spreading his ass open for his brother, and Dean working a couple of lubed fingers inside. Lining up, ready to press in.

And, God, the sounds wrung out of Sam.

Dean comes to sitting at the desk with his own hand on his rock-hard cock, seconds from shooting all over the bunker floor.

He feels sick, and also kind of defiant.

*

After he goes and jerks off properly, in the bathroom, trying to summon up memories of faceless women, Dean goes back to the library, cool as you please. It's empty still. He goes over to Sam's room- the door is closed, thank fuck, so there's a good chance Sam didn't hear Dean's little session earlier.

He pushes the door open soundlessly, and his stomach lurches at what he sees. Sam is lying exactly the way Dean envisioned, ass unconsciously on display, hair falling forward over his face. He's typing fast, and doesn't see Dean for a second; it's surreal, Dean's heart pounding.

It gets even more surreal when Sam rolls onto his back, propping himself on his elbows, and Dean almost, almost thinks that the world loves him for once, that his wish is actually happening. He takes a stuttered step forward. He can't touch Sam. He must get his hands all over Sam. This can't be happening. It is happening.

Then Sam begins to talk, and the illusion shatters.

'Hey, man, I was just going to come get you. Listen- I've been through pretty much every contact in the book- most of them have heard of manticores, some know the basics, but they're pretty damn rare. However.'

'Why do I get the feeling we could use that Bobby guy right now,' Dean deadpans, surprised by the normalcy of his tone.

Sam cracks a sad smile.

He traces a pattern on the comforter for a second, eyes sad, and Dean has to say 'Go on.'

Sam does. 'Yeah. Sorry. Um- this one hunter. I got his number from _another_ hunter- we helped her out a few years back, and she thought this guy could help us. Anyway, turns out he's killed one.'

Suddenly Dean's alert. 'Killed one? Killed a manticore?'

'And-' Sam holds up a finger- 'that's not all. Man, you don't need any special crap for this. No rituals, no Shinto priests. Apparently you can shoot them with plain old iron rounds- that's what this guy did.'

'That sounds way too good to be true, little brother,' says Dean, but his heart is thumping.

Sam grins, shaking his head. 'That's what I thought. So I rung up this guy's hunting buddy. He was there and he _swears_ it's true.'

For a second Dean allows himself to think they're going to be okay. Then he says, 'We still need to locate one.'

But Sam's grin has spread.

He reaches under the comforter for a notebook and passes it to Dean. It's crammed with shitty handwriting that Dean assumes is Sam's, and it looks like- Jesus, it looks like instructions for a spell.

He looks up and says, 'Is this what I think it is?'

Sam's face will break apart any second now.

'A locating spell,' he says happily. 'We've got a _locating spell_ , Dean. It's gonna be fine. It's all gonna be fine, Dean, I swear.'

Dean's got a bad feeling in his gut. He smiles, for Sam, because those huge eyes are impossible to deny; he's humouring him like a little child, he realises after a second, and with that thought any embarassment and frustration vanishes, replaced by a kind of careful affection. Sam is worn thin today- he's got that look people get when they feel exhausted and creaky and used-up- and Dean sees. He sees and he pries the notebook from unresisting fingers, pushing Sam back down onto the covers, closing the laptop. He can't bring himself to run his fingers through Sam's hair.

'What'cha doin?' his brother mumbles, turning over to bury his face in the pillow, and _God_.

'S'okay,' Dean says. 'You're exhausted. Get some sleep.'

'The spell.'

'I'll handle the spell. Sleep, Sam.'

He's out like a fucking light.

*

It takes Dean a while to locate all the crap he needs for the spell, but it's all in the bunker- everything from tarragon to seal blood to plain old human blood. When he sets the map on fire, the sudden heat and whoosh of flames sends him a step backwards, and he's briefly convinced he did it wrong somehow.

But the map burns away, leaving behind a tiny scrap- and right in the centre is some town in Minnesota.

One manticore currently in the US, then. Just one. They need to move fast; the things are about as smart as they're inconspicuous, and it'd be too easy, assuming they can be killed like humans can, for another hunter to beat them to it and nail the monster. Dean doesn't like their chances of browsing hippie stores for manticore eyes.

He does the packing- partly because he feels safer knowing where everything is, and partly because Sam clearly needs rest. Once again, Dean considers leaving Sam behind. Ill, he'll only slow the hunt. But Dean needs him to supply the memories- and anyway, Sam'll probably be better within a couple days, and then he'll be an asset.

Duffle over his shoulder, Dean marches down to Sam's room again. This time he's genuinely taken aback.

Both Sam's hands are fisted in the sheets, but he's curled in on himself in a shuddering ball. 'No. No no no no no no. You can't h-have me, not again, I won't let you, not again. No no no. Dean? Oh, God. Oh, God.'

Dean has no idea what to do. He stands in the doorway and watches as his curled-up brother tugs on his hair. Watches a tear drip off the end of Sam's nose. 'N-no, _you can't have me_. He won't- he won't let you. He won't. Please. I beg of you. Beg of you. I- oh, _God_ -'

Dean's shaking him awake by now, started trying to when Sam said 'He won't let you.' Slapping does nothing to pull him out of it, and Sam is crying now, little shivery noises. 'No no no no no. Please.' Dean's heart feels like it went through a juicer. This has to stop _now_ , so he does the only thing he can think of: he grabs Sam's wrist and twists it.

He doesn't break the delicate bones, he knows what he's doing, but it has the desired effect; Sam bolts upright with a shout of pain. After a moment his eyes finally focus upon Dean. Some part of Dean expects Sam to be pissed; it's worse. He looks wary, and he cradles his tender wrist protectively to his chest.

'I didn't know what else to do,' explains Dean.

Realisation makes Sam a little less tense. 'I had a nightmare, huh?'

'That happen a lot?'

He nods, not meeting Dean's eyes.

Something in Dean's chest twists. He has an urge to wrap himself around Sam, to touch his hair and kiss his temples.

Instead he says, 'C'mon, Sasquatch. We gotta hit the road.'

Sam stares at him for the barest second. Then he wipes his eyes with his sleeve, gets carefully off the bed, and follows Dean unsteadily out.

Dean's starting to realise that Sam will always follow him.

*

Things feel far better when they're out on the road at last; clearly the curse hasn't impaired Dean's sense of direction, because he knows the way to Minnesota. Sam's huddled up in layers of jackets, but he seems to gradually unhunch as the miles curl past, sitting straighter, smiling more. Dean finds a box of cassette tapes by his foot and is ready to scoff before he sees the tentative hope in Sam's eyes; he says nothing, but slides in a tape labelled BLACK SABBATH. _Paranoid_ blasts out, and Sam looks away. Dean wonders if he's crying.

'So talk to me,' he says after a while. 'Minnesota. We ever work a case there?'

Sam thinks, then seems to start a little. 'Yeah, actually. A few times.'

'Spill,' says Dean, when it doesn't appear that Sam's going to continue.

'Um, okay. Well- this was some eight years back. We'd just started hunting together again. I was still a kid, you know? And you were like- like if anything even looked at me funny-' Sam breaks off. 'So we were in this bar one night. You were out to have fun, y'know, so when I left, you stuck around. Anyway- I'm out in the parking lot, and then my feet just go under me, and that's all I remember.

'I wake up in a- in a cage.'

Dean tenses.

Sam tells the story. He speaks of a little girl, no more than twelve, and her family of psycho rednecks. He speaks of the guy, Alvin Jenkins, and of his screams minutes after he escaped. He speaks of a yard filled with rusty cars, a jar of human teeth, and a policewoman called Kathleen, someone he's always wanted to thank.

And he speaks of Dean as if he's a hero.

He speaks of Dean as if he's _gone_.

*

When Sam finishes, Dean's hands are clenched hard around the wheel. Sam didn't tell the tale as a sob story, but as one of everyday life. Dean isn't sure he wants to go to Minnesota now. They put Sam in a _cage_.

Dean can't imagine Sam ever hurting anyone.

'That's ridiculous,' he says when Dean tells him. 'Dean, I've hurt more people than I could ever possibly make up for, I promise you.'

'Oh, yeah? And how many people have I hurt?'

'Let's not argue.'

'Sam. For fuck's sake.'

'Look, Dean-' Sam breathes in. 'Let's not, okay? Not now. I know I said I'd tell you, and I will. But just let us have this, man.'

'But-'

'Please.'

Dean gives in. Of course he does.

'So come on, buddy. I want stories. Regular cases we've worked.'

Sam's face relaxes into a relieved grin.

'See if you can jog my memory,' says Dean.

*

Sam tells him stories for hours. He tells him about the shifter in St Louis. He tells him about the Pagan gods who tried to sacrifice Dean in a fertility ritual. When Dean finds that bewildering, Sam grins and tells him about a case they worked at Christmas this one time, which involved fingernail-pulling and evergreens. A couple of times, he makes Dean laugh so hard it hurts.

After the second time, Sam sits and watches him pensively.

'What?' says Dean, kind of peevish.

But his brother gives a sheepish grin. 'Nothing, man.' He seems to sober after a moment. 'It's just- it's weird, you know, this is weird.'

'Yeah, 'cause your life is completely fuckin' normal.'

'No- no. I just mean- you're you. But you're not you. You have your voice. Your mannerisms, but different. God, Dean, you almost- almost remind me of that shifter. No no no, I know it's you- but you're- I don't know- you're _colder_.'

'What's that s'posed to mean?'

Sam scrubs a hand over his forehead. 'You just are. You look at me differently. I don't know.'

Dean frowns. 'How'd I used to look at you?'

When Sam doesn't answer, he says, 'Tell me another story, c'mon.'

So Sam tells him about the time they beheaded Paris Hilton, and something eases up between them.

*

Sometime around nine, they pull over at a diner. Sam's voice went croaky already; he's asleep, leaning against the window. Dean pulls his hair to wake him up, and Sam shoots him a glare. 'Why've we stopped?' He says through a yawn.

'For sustenance, kiddo.' Dean helps him out of the car.

The diner is brightly lit and understaffed. A tired-eyed waitress takes Dean's order. Sam, who still looks half-asleep, smiles weakly and says he'll pass, thanks. It's probably the fluorescent lighting that makes him look so pale- white like snow, icing sugar, sour milk.

'You should eat,' says Dean.

'I'd jus throw it up.' He sounds exhausted.

'What is this, anyway? Flu or something?'

Sam nods. 'Yeah, yeah. I'll be back to normal within a couple days, tops. I promise.'

'Well, I'm gonna need all the help I can get with this mantiwhatever, y'know.'

'I know.'

When Dean's burger arrives, Sam looks faintly queasy. After a minute, he slips away to the men's bathroom. Dean debates following, then tells himself not to be creepy. He tears into his burger; God, he's hungry. Sam slinks to the back of his mind.

When his brother does emerge, skin now with an awful chalky hue, Dean's sated and optimistic. Everything is going to be fine.

*

It's three in the morning when they reach the shithole Minnesota town where the manticore is. Dean's hungry again and his vision is blurring. They book in at the first fugly motel they see and Sam collapses face-down on the bed.

Earlier, Dean jerked off in a truck-stop bathroom, fantasizing about fucking Sam's mouth, twining silky hair between his fingers, feeling the flutter of soft throat muscles round his cock. God, it had felt _wrong_ , knowing that Sam was ill and passed-out in the passenger seat at that very moment, but it was that or spend the rest of the journey half-hard.

Now he simply strips to his boxers and turns to his bed. He's all set to just dive in, but Sam is fully-clothed, completely out already, even his goddamn boots still on.

Dean takes a second to get himself under control.

Very, very gently, he unlaces and removes Sam's boots, then his socks, then his other socks, because apparently his legs are too ridiculously long for blood to reach their ends. He peels him out of his jacket and folds it up, then a thick plaid shirt. He hesitates, then; should he just leave Sam in jeans and t-shirt?

Telling himself it's for Sam, it's for Sam, he carefully rolls Sam onto his front. His head lolls back, exposing his long white throat, and Dean aches with the urge to nuzzle into it like an animal. He settles for tucking Sam's hair behind his ears; carefully, holding up his arms, he eases his brother out of his shirt. He tries not to see the expanse of torso, the faint dips between ribs, the moles and the wasted remnants of once-defined muscles.

He unbuckles Sam's belt and, hooking an arm around his waist, slides his jeans off. Sam has spaghetti legs, absurdly long and bony. There's something weirdly endearing about that that helps Dean push down the heat in his gut; he swallows, throat dry, and presses a single kiss to Sam's belly-button, just above the faint trail of hair.

Then he tucks his brother into bed, and he wonders if Old Dean would have done it any differently. He wonders if he cares.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, be proud of me. I actually posted in under a week. Next thing we know there'll be burning bushes everywhere.

There's something _off_ about this town, these people. He's sure Sam senses it too. Dean drums his fingers against the sofa. There's a teeny-weeny china cup dwarfed by his other hand, filled with tea- fucking _tea_ \- and he can feel the weight of his gun in his jacket, making it hang slightly off-balance.  
Sam slept three hours past Dean earlier, sprawled on the bed in total surrender. Even when Dean finally shook him awake and thrust a coffee in his face he'd remained sleepy and pliant for the rest of the morning. Otherwise, though, he seems better; pale, but maybe he's always like that and Dean just doesn't know jackshit.  
It's Sam who pastes on the looks of polite concern as they interview the locals house by house. They did all the research earlier; it's impossible to tell whether all the missing persons in Minnesota are missing because of this manticore or mantathing or whatever, or just plain missing. But there are more disappearances in this state than any other. Sam says they noticed that years back, with the Benders case (where they put Sam in a _cage_ ), but they'd never thought it could be something else too. Certainly not a creature fresh from Greek mythology.  
'Agent? You with us?'  
_Sam_. Dean must have zoned out. 'Yeah, Sa- Agent.' God, he can't get the hang of this. The sweet old biddy whose house they've invaded gives him a smile, all aren't-you-just-the-sweetest-thing, and he forces one back.  
There's something going on here. It's more than a simple rampant monster case. These people should be panicked; they're cheery and hospitable. Even the ones who knew disappeared persons. It's giving Dean the willies. Everyone's falling over themselves to offer he and Sam cookies and coffee and invite them to BBQs and pimp them out to their nieces (no word of a lie, Dean swears the old lady they met earlier on tried to hook him up with her granddaughter). Sam had looked amused at Dean's discomfort, and said he was kind of shocked that Dean had turned the offer down (and, okay, judging by the pictures the granddaughter had been kinda hot, but just no).  
But beneath the come-to-Jesus attitude, these people refuse to actually give them any information.  
'So you're _sure_ you've not seen anyone wearing half a lion suit recently,' Sam says earnestly to the woman.  
She flashes a toothy smile. 'Oh, no, dear. And I've been out and about ever such a lot. Poor Jeremy needed his- oh, what d'you call them?- vaccinations- that's Jeremy sitting on the refrigerator- so I've been to the vet's five times. Or six times. And I went out grocery-shopping just yesterday-'  
Any _useful_ information.  
He and Sam drive back to the motel in silence. It's already getting dark and he's wishing he'd got Sam to drive; he's had the beginnings of a headache all day, throbbing in his temple like a beating heart.  
When they get back, Dean takes off his damn tie. Sam curls up on his bed, still besuited, as if he's about to go to sleep. Dean pokes him. 'Coming to the diner?'  
'Nah.'  
Dean frowns. He thinks back as far as he can. 'You sure about that, Sam?'  
'Just wanna sleep.'  
'Because when the hell did you last eat?'  
Sam raises his head. 'Does it really matter? You go. I'm fine.'  
'I thought you were getting over this flu thing. Or whatever it is.'  
'Am.'  
'Dude, you gotta eat.'  
'Dean, just go, for God's sake. I'm staying here.'  
He thinks about giving up and leaving. But he's pretty sure his old self would kick himself for that. His old, protective self, who tracked Sam right to this state to find him seven years ago. Dean can't possibly stand up to Old Dean in Sam's eyes, of course, but he can try and stop himself from being a total failure.  
'Sam, you're coming with if I have to carry you out.'  
'Like you could anyway,' Sam mumbles into the pillow, and Dean, well- he's only got one option after that.  
He leans forward and hooks one arm under Sam's knees, the other behind Sam's shoulders. His brother tenses immediately, looking up, but doesn't struggle; Dean's surprised, actually. He'd been expecting more of a response.  
But Sam just grins lazily. 'That the best you've got?'  
The little fucker doesn't think Dean can do it. He's smiling as he hefts Sam up towards his chest, and Sam gives a weird little yelp and clutches at Dean's jacket. 'Dean, what the hell?'  
'Sorry, kiddo, but you asked for it,' says Dean, grinning, and kicks open the motel door. 'Grab the keys for me, will you?' He motions to the Impala keys lying on a table, and Sam sticks out a hand to grab them. He's both ridiculously heavy and not as heavy as expected, but Dean can just about manage. Sam seems to actually be having the harder time here, both his fists hanging on to Dean's jacket until his knuckles are white. When Dean carries him outside, he actually buries his face in Dean's shirt. 'Dean, seriously, they all think I'm a damn fed. What the-?'  
Dean just smirks down at Sam. 'Why so shocked, little bro?'  
'I didn't think you were actually gonna _do_ it,' Sam gasps, his face still hidden. He pulls away and looks up, glaring. 'Y'know, when this is all over I'm gonna do this to you.'  
Dean grins, but all he says is 'Gimme the keys, Sam.'  
Sam frowns. 'Your hands are kinda full.'  
Breathing in long and low, Dean wriggles his upper arms. Then, in one smooth movement, he tosses Sam over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. Sam stifles his cry, and Dean feels fingers digging into his back. 'Oh my God, Dean-'  
He gives Sam a friendly slap on the rump. 'Those keys, Sam? Today?'  
Sam's swearing like a sailor, and maybe giggling a bit too, but finally Dean has the Impala opened. He bundles Sam inside and gets in.  
His headache is gone and right now things actually feel kind of beautiful.  
*  
Things change once they get to the diner. Under the harsh lights, Sam looks like an overexposed photograph. Dean can almost see him wilting, hunching in on himself.  
He puts a hand on his brother's thin shoulder.  
'No,' he says. 'C'mon, Sam. Don't get like that, man.'  
Sam frowns. 'Like what?'  
'Y'know. You went all sad and soggy there for a moment. Seriously, do you need to get laid or something?'  
'I'll pass.'  
'I wasn't offering.'  
Sam looks at him funny. 'I know you weren't.'  
The waitress comes over to their table before that can go any further. It's a different girl to last time; this one has dark, coiled-back hair and large breasts, and she flashes white teeth at Dean as she takes down his order. She treats Sam less warmly. Sam orders a coffee, not displaying a flash of the charm Dean knows he possesses.  
Impulsively he says, 'You know what- double my order.'  
'You're sure hungry,' says Sam, amused, once she's gone.  
'Ain't both for me, jackass.'  
Sam just rolls his eyes.  
When the food arrives, Dean pushes a burger towards Sam. 'C'mon, buddy. You can do this.' Christ, it's like he's a fucking coach.  
Sam tries, he really does. He takes little bites and spends about a million years chewing, swallowing with obvious effort. It takes so long for him to eat half that Dean's been sitting there, plate empty, tapping his foot against the floor for the last fifteen minutes.  
When Sam pushes the plate away, food still mostly uneaten, there's a thin sheen of sweat breaking out on his forehead. Dean's been bored and impatient for way too long, so he doesn't say anything.  
When they're back at the motel, Sam makes a break for the bathroom. Dean catches himself rolling his eyes at the sounds of vomiting. He was prepared to baby Sam for a few days, but there's something not right here. Sam is still basically functional in a way that he wouldn't be if this so-called flu was as bad as the puking would suggest, right? But the nosebleeds and the inability to keep food down. The mental acuity that he's somehow managed to retain- it doesn't add up. Should he question him? Hell, would Sam-  
Before Dean can follow his line of thought further, his vision slips.  
It feels like no time has passed when he wakes up on the grotty carpet. Sam's slapping his face, saying his name in this little choked voice, and when Dean peels his face off the floor and opens his eyes he wonders if Sam is seriously going to hug him.  
He doesn't, though, just keeps saying things like 'Dean, God, what the hell happened, I was so fucking scared, are you okay, I thought you were dead,' like that's the worst thing that can happen to a person.  
'S'okay, Sam,' he grunts, and sits unsteadily up. 'Jesus fuck.'  
His brother grabs his elbows and pulls him to his feet. This close, the height difference is more pronounced; Sam is big, but willowy. There's something breakable about him despite his broad shoulders. Dean is built shorter and jocklike, but still freaking _tall_. Sam doesn't loom over him, but it's a tilt-your-head-back-to-kiss situation.  
It flashes across Dean's mind that he would have no problem holding Sam against the wall and fucking his brains out if the occasion called for it.  
It's then that he realises he's sitting down, that Sam has steered him over to a bed ( _Sam's bed_ ) and is hovering over him anxiously. Dean becomes aware that Sam just asked him a question. 'What?'  
'The spell,' repeats Sam. 'Do you think it has side effects or something?'  
It takes Dean a second to get what he's saying, and then he blinks. 'What? No.'  
Sam opens his mouth to say more, but Dean cuts him off. 'Who the hell is Jo Harvelle?'  
The motel door rattles with the force of the wind.  
'Dude,' Dean says after a good fifteen seconds of Sam staring at him. 'What?'  
Sam snaps out of it. 'Nothing. Um.' He rakes a hand through his wavy hair, drops to the bed next to Dean. 'Jo? You really remember... Jo?'  
'Yeah, man,' he says. 'Look, I just- little skinny chick, easy on the eyes? Killer with a knife?'  
His brother eyes him for a moment, then says, 'Yeah, that was Jo.'  
'Was?'  
'She, uh. Passed.'  
Dean is not prepared for the gut-punch.  
'Oh.'  
'Yeah.'  
'Fuck.' Then, when Sam is not forthcoming, 'When?'  
'Three years.'  
'That's... that's not a long time.'  
'No,' says Sam, and looks away.  
Seconds later, 'Dean,' and Sam draws in a sharp, shaky breath. 'I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.'  
'What the hell for?'  
Sam looks at him like he's crazy. He gesticulates wildly, seeming to encompass everything from the stained pillowcases to the alignment of the stars. 'This. Us. Our whole freaking lives. D-do you have any idea how- how bad I screwed things up yet? You've had a weird memory attack about Jo and about Bobby. Are you- do you remember me and- everything that happened? Or do you-'  
He breaks off. Dean focuses on a strand of hair that has loosened itself from behind Sam's ear. It begs him to loop it round his finger.  
'Dean,' says Sam. 'I just- I just have no idea how to handle this. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.'  
He sits back and rubs a hand distractedly through his hair for a moment before hunching over and disappearing into the bathroom.  
'For the record,' Dean says to empty space, 'No. I don't fucking remember you. I have no goddamn clue if you're even who you say you are.'  
Nobody answers. He exhales. For a moment he feels old.  
*  
The air in the room is warmed only by their breath.  
Dean can't sleep. He's insistently half-hard, and normally he'd go jack off in the bathroom but he doesn't want Sam to wake up and hear him.  
In quiet moments like these he can't help but probe through the emptiness that nestles in him. It is uncomfortable to have no memories; when he gets them back he'll be able to revel in the feeling, one that he'd probably never considered _not_ taking for granted before (except he really has no clue whether he took it for granted before because he has no fucking memories). All he has are shadowy impressions of terror and horror and grief and, beneath that, a weird immutable warmth.

He wonders if the last part is Sam.  
Sam, sleeping in the next bed.  
He puts his hand on his cock, making no noise.  
It's like he can feel every whorl of his own palm.  
He feels like a predator as he slips out of bed. There's no other word for it. Following the warm sleep-scent of Sam, the faint imprint his snuffled breaths left in the atmosphere. He grins to himself on realising that his brother's feet hang off the edge of the bed, and he crawls on, a leg on either side of Sam's body.  
He senses the exact moment Sam wakes, tensing.  
'Dean?' a sleep-slurred voice asks. The question is unnecessary. Dean knows that Sam knows the cadence of his lungs.  
He reaches forward. It's pitch-black, but Dean's hand goes unfailingly to Sam's cheekbone, whisper-gentle, traces the faint scratchy-silk stubble and the soft skin beneath. Sam's breathing hitches. 'What are you doing?' he says, still whispering.  
Dean sounds gruff when he speaks, harsh and low. Cutting through the fragile hush. 'Tell me to stop,' he says, tracing the sharp ridge of Sam's jaw.  
That hitch again. 'Dean.'  
'Yeah.' His hand, caressing with a tenderness that belies his voice, moves along the delicate tendons of Sam's neck. His calluses must feel strange against the soft skin. 'Tell me to stop,' he says again, and this time his own voice dips and wavers.  
Sam tenses beneath his fingers, but says, 'No.'  
Fingers skate down to the neckline of Sam's soft grey top, learning the lines of his collarbones, and back, fitting under powerful shoulderblades. Their mechanism is breathtaking. They shift and fold into place like wings.  
And still his hands trace down. 'Tell me to stop,' he says. His voice is ragged.  
And still Sam says, 'No.'  
When he arrives at the elastic of sleep pants, moulding his hands to his brother's slim waist, he says 'Tell me to stop' and Sam, his voice a little higher, says 'No.'  
So Dean does it. He slides his hand down smooth hot skin, under the waistband of Sam's boxers, grasps the slender length of his semi-hard dick. 'Tell me,' he orders, just once more, because how could he forgive himself otherwise, 'to stop.'  
And still, _still_ Sam says, 'No.'

  
Something breaks. One of them, both of them, the whole fucking universe.

 

With the first pull of Dean's hand, Sam lets out this wounded-animal noise. His hands clutch at Dean's elbows as Dean strokes him to full hardness, then begins jerking him off in earnest, wholly aware of the satiny skin in his hand, of Sam's head hanging forward enough for hair to brush Dean's forearms. Sam is tense, wound like a clockwork toy, and Dean must hardly be better, but then all the tension in Sam's body releases and he pitches forward, head buried in Dean's chest as he comes with a stifled whimper, and Dean rubs his back and rests his chin in his soft hair and just waits it out.  
Afterwards, Sam is limp, woozy. His eyelashes tickle Dean's collarbone as he blinks. Dean releases him from his arms and is surprised when Sam's hands advance tentatively towards Dean's waistband, but he wraps his fingers round Sam's wrists and removes his hands gently.  
Sam flops back and is asleep immediately. It gives Dean a twinge of  guilt, and he can't help wondering if Sam was awake enough for rational decisions. He tugs Sam's pants and boxers off and cleans him off with a few tissues, still in the dark, then bundles his brother into another pair of boxers.  
He tucks Sam into bed. Then he goes and jacks off in the bathroom, stripping his cock so hard it'll probably be raw tomorrow.  
It's really kind of hard to care.  
He has no idea what he's feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments help me get up in the morning :D


	6. Chapter 6

They'd found hair tangled in the branches the next morning.

They'd been poking round the back of one of the houses they'd investigated the day before, standing at the edge of a forest. Dean had gone a little way into the trees; Sam had had a rough time climbing the fence, and was leaning against it with a face the colour of milk.

Sam hadn't mentioned what had happened the previous night, and Dean hadn't said anything. He'd had a couple more memory-jolt things; a skinny guy called Garth, distant impressions of a woman who could only be their mother. His memories seemed to be coming together, but huge peices of the puzzle were missing.

'Maybe your memories'll come back on their own,' Sam had said, tiredly, when Dean put it to him. 'Maybe not. But, look, there's a monster in this town, and it's hurting people. We _need_ to finish this job, Dean. This isn't just about us.'

So of course that made Dean feel like a selfish dick for no reason whatsoever.

He'd found the hair caught in a patch of briars a little way into the woods. It was coarse stuff, reddish-tinted, _animal_. There was a certain scent to it, a certain feel- Dean knew. He'd checked in with Sam, asked his opinion on the hair, because the guy was clearly having some kind of crisis about feeling useless or whatever. And why the hell not?- after all, he was pretty useless right now.

But Sam just frowned and looked at him and said, 'Dean, I have no fucking clue and I'm a little concerned as to how _you_ do.'

Dean didn't think that was funny, but whatever.

Still, it had been a solid lead. Sam has insisted on taking stakeout duty for the afternoon, watching the house they'd found the hair outside. And that means that Dean gets to stay behind in the motel, watching porn on Pay-Per-View and doing nothing on the side except a little research.

It feels good, actually. Sam has been exhausting him; the way the guy moved, folded into himself, did not demand attention, but it drew Dean's anyway. When he's with him he can not stop watching Sam, can't stop remembering (oh God the night before and Sam shuddering beneath him), can't stop wanting to plunge his fingers into Sam's hair and yank his head back and bite the shivering column of his throat.

By comparison, porn, pie and magic fingers is uncomplicated. Perhaps it's this that makes it two whole hours before it occurs to Dean to research them.

Because, hell, Sam isn't being exactly forthcoming, is he? Twenty-four hours, he'd said, and still Dean knows fuck-all about their lives. Sure, they hunt monsters, sure, they're obviously criminals, but Dean gets the sense there's more to it than that. He hasn't wanted to push Sam into anything- kid isn't exactly _stable_ , obviously- but this way he can find out about them and Sam never even has to know. He doesn't have to say anything, after all. It's just a matter of... satisfying curiosity.

He Googles _sam and dean winchester_.

He reads through the top results.

Then he Googles _winchester brothers_. Reads through.

Googles _sam winchester_. Googles _dean winchester_.

Reads.

　

*

The Sam in the video is not the one Dean knows.

This Sam's hair is a little shorter. His clothes fit better. He's clean-shaven. But there's something mean about his face, his eyes; a cruel set to his mouth.

He helps Dean open-fire on a diner full of people. Then they make a chatty video about it on the phone they took from a kid they murdered.

The video, part of a news article on the Winchester killing spree, is only a year old. Sam's physical deterioriation must have been rapid.

Sam looks into the camera and says, 'I want the whole world to know what Sam and Dean Winchester are capable of.'

Dean shuts the computer screen. He's a murderer. He's shaking. Sam lied to him. Sam has gentle eyes and coughs blood, but Sam lied to him and Sam is _evil_ ; pure and inhuman.

It seems obvious in retrospect.

He gets up and paces the room once, then sits back down again. Then gets up and goes to sit on the bed.

Their death toll was in the hundreds, _oh Jesus_.

And if his memories come back? What happens then? He goes psycho again, screws his brother every night (because after that video there is no doubt to him that they're fucking, that's just _another_ thing Sam lied to him about), and they go off into the sunset in that fucking muscle car? Everything in him recoils from it.

What does this mean? Is there something inside him that makes him a killer? Something in both of them that can't be resisted- something that's twisted them into people who protect each other with a ferocity that borders on the holy, yet destroys everything in its path?

Is Dean evil right now? If something happened to make him- like _that_ \- then perhaps as long as he doesn't remember it, he's safe. He's good. But what could make a person turn so spectacularly awful, unless the evil was already inside them?

The phone rings, and he picks it up like an automaton.

'Dean? Hello?'

Sam. His chest hurts.

'Hello,' he says. 'I mean. Hey. Sam.'

He can almost hear the frown. 'You okay?'

'Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Has anything happened?'

Sam coughs once, then says, 'Nothing. It's quiet- too qui-' He breaks off into another bout of coughing.

It repulses Dean to think about treating this creature with tenderness, but he doesn't want Sam to guess that he knows, so he asks. 'Are you alright, man?'

Nasty hacking. Then, 'Yeah,' his voice grates out. 'Fine.'

They sit in silence for a minute. Dean can hear the whirring of the room's fan.

'Look, ah, Dean,' says Sam awkwardly. 'I just- I wanted to apologise.'

Oh, God, no. 'About what, Sam?'

'It's just-' Sam clears his throat. 'I know I've been, you know, keeping you in the dark a bit over the past few days. And I know you... probably feel kinda messed up about that.'

 _Sweetheart, you have no idea_. 'I guess?'

'I swear, Dean, you'll understand when you get your memories back, I swear. I've- I've done some stuff, is all. I mean, so have you, but I- I started- Just some bad stuff. Over the last few years. And- and people have been- been hurt. Y'know?'

Yeah, Dean knows.

'And- it wasn't- I was manipulated, I _know_ that, and I never meant to cause anything and, Dean, neither did you, okay? I just want you to remember that when- when this is over.'

'Sam,' says Dean. He can't quite be gentle, but he can't make himself be harsh either. 'What's this about?'

A bitter laugh. 'Sorry. I, uh- I guess I just- you listen to me. This version of you listens to me. And I know it's because I'm kind of all you know, apart from, like, instinct and flashbacks and everything. But I need to say this and have you believe me.'

'Why are you talking like you're going to die?' asks Dean quietly.

There's a sound somewhere between a sob and a strangled laugh, and Sam says, 'It's kind of a really long story.'

'You're not, right?'

'W-what?'

'Going to die?'

Sam exhales. The hesitation- it frightens Dean, despite everything. His chest tightens. 'Dean, I- I'm sick, man.'

'Yeah, Sam. I know.'

'D-do you even want your memories back, Dean? Because lemme tell you- if you knew what was in them-'

Sam breaks off, and Dean had gone hot and cold all over in the instant where he thought Sam was about to say we're monsters, we're mass-murderers, and he can't help but push. 'What's in them, Sam?'

' _Pain_ ,' Sam says. 'Blood, and- and screaming, and grief and loneliness and things more awful than you can even imagine. And me, too. Lots of me. And I can't help wondering- do you have the slightest idea what you're taking on by getting them back?'

And although Dean's heart is trying to claw its way from his chest, he grips the edge of the desk and says, 'It's okay, Sam, it's okay. I'm not gonna give up, you hear me? I'm getting them back.'

There's a lump growing in his throat, and it's getting harder to talk around.

'But do you _want_ them back?'

He's thrown. Sam can't know that Dean's discovered the truth- can he? Can he? 'Why the hell wouldn't I want them back?'

Maybe it sounds a little too defensive, because there's silence for a while. He hears Sam clear his throat.

'I dunno,' says Sam. 'It's just. Y'know. You aren't broken anymore.'

Just like that, Dean's throat seizes up.

There's a fucking _universe_ of horror locked into that one sentence, and then he knows: Sam loves him. Sam is awful and vicious and twisted, but Sam loves him.

Fuck it. _Fuck_ it. He hangs up.

*

Dean knows what he's going to do almost immediately. He goes through his bag, sets out everything he needs on the table. By the time Sam calls back- nearly two hours later- he's sitting by the door, gun in hand.

When the phone rings, he answers it on the fourth ring so as not to seem suspicious. 'Yup?'

'DEAN!'

'Sam-'

'Listen, Dean, I'm driving back, okay, I'm on my way to pick you up, be ready, _please_ -'

'Whoa, buddy, calm down. What happened?'

'She was keeping the manticore in her fucking _cellar_ \- that old lady- Jesus _Christ_ -'

'Hey, hey, cool it, c'mon.'

'Oh God, Dean, I- I heard a scream and I got out of the car and found the cellar and I think she'd been trying to feed it or something, it fucking ate her- Dean, I think it's the townspeople, they've been _looking after_ the manticore for some reason-'

Shit. He really hadn't expected something like this so soon. 'Yeah, I'd say you definitely need me on the job.'

'Of course I need you- jeez, Dean, I can't even run a hundred metres without throwing up- look, be ready, okay-'

'You said that, dude. I'm ready and waiting, promise.'

'I'll be there in five-'

'Don't squash any deer, Sam.'

A shaky laugh, and a beep as Sam hangs up.

*

He never even has a chance. The second Sam bursts into the motel room, the butt of Dean's gun is sailing towards his forehead. He makes a little surprised sound as he collapses into a heap.

Dean hooks his hands beneath Sam's armpits and drags him onto the bed.

*

By the time Sam wakes up, Dean has handcuffed him to the chair.

The only thing signalling Sam's return to consciousness is the tiny intake of breath as he sees (recognises?) the items Dean is laying out on the desk.

Knives. Salt cartridges. Screwdrivers. Pliers.

'You're awake,' Dean observes.

Sam closes his eyes, then opens them, as if the scene will have changed any. Dean almost feels sorry for him.

His little brother draws in a shaky breath and the first word out of his mouth is ' _Christo_.'

Dean is nonplussed. 'What's that mean?'

'Oh, shit,' Sam mutters. 'You're not even a fucking _demon_. Are you a shifter?'

'No, Sam. Not a shifter. Just me.'

'Yeah, that's what they all say.'

Who is this Sam? He isn't the intellectual invalid Dean knows, isn't the psycho from the internet articles. He's hard-eyed, shut down.

'It's really me,' he says. 'I swear. Here.' Sam had told him about the properties of silver. He slices into his arm, looking Sam in the eyes the entire time.

It takes a second to really go through Sam's head, Dean sees. When it does, it's as if clouds part and a sliver of vulnerability- of something like betrayal- shines through as his brother looks up at him.

'Dean, cut me loose,' says Sam.

'No way.' He reminds himself of what Sam is, of what Sam's done. 'I looked us up, you dumb fuck. You're an idiot for leaving me alone to research. I _saw_ what we did- the massacres, the killing sprees-'

Sam looks blank for a second. Then he presses his eyes closed. 'Oh, fuck. Fucking fuck.'

'Yeah,' Dean agrees.

Somehow, there's a knife in his hand, a big one with a serrated blade, and it's resting at Sam's sternum.

'Dean,' Sam says earnestly, refusing to look down at the knife, 'listen to me. The serial killers on the news? _That wasn't us_. Shifters, man. Not us. We stopped them.'

He laughs, though he files away what Sam says. 'And why should I believe you, huh? Sam, you haven't told me anything.'

'That's not true,' Sam protests. 'I've told you everything that won't make you run for the hills, okay? I've told you as much as I could.'

He can feel every heave of Sam's chest under the blade.

'Now I don't think that's entirely true.'

'So, what,' and Sam's voice shakes, 'you're gonna cut it out of me?'

'No. You're gonna tell me.'

'Fuck, Dean, I'll tell you, okay? You're probably not going to believe me, but you don't need to go straight to _torture_ , fuck.'

'Okay,' said Dean. 'Here's how it's gonna go. You're a fucking monster and there's no reason why I should believe you. But you're gonna tell me everything, starting from the beginning, and then you're gonna prove to me that it's true and that we're not those psychos who went round killing people.'

Sam's eyes are huge.

'But lemme tell you, dude, given this crazy itch I have to slice you up right now, you might have a tough time convincing me.'

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much appreciated. Sorry about the wait- I'm going to try and finish this off within the next couple weeks, as I have a few other ideas I'd like to get started on. Anyway, tell me your thoughts!
> 
> You can also follow me on Tumblr for regular updates (plus I'll answer questions) at http://dirigibleboyking.tumblr.com/.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry.

Sam tells him everything. Of course he does. He doesn't look like he'd last long under a knife.

Sam tells him everything. He tells him about Jess, and his voice wavers, but Dean's grip doesn't loosen on the knife handle. He tells him about dying. He tells him about deals with demons, he tells him about a bitch called Bela, he tells him about hellhounds (and a phantom memory rears in Dean, makes him flinch).

He tells Dean everything. Dean cuts him up anyway.

　

'You went to Hell,' Sam grits out. Dean's dragging the blade carelessly over his collarbones, carving thin crimson lines. 'Dean, you can fight this.'

'Go on, Sam,' says Dean. 'I want to know.'

Sam's face is chalky. There's a thin sheen of sweat over his forehead. Dean gently sprinkles salt into the cuts he just made, and every tendon in Sam's neck pulls tight.

'Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.'

His shirt is hanging off him in rags, body a blank canvas of soft white skin. He has a few moles here and there. Dean thinks they're cute, avoids them when he slices in. He hasn't made Sam scream yet, but then, he hasn't used the bleach yet.

'Go on, Sam.'

'Went to- went to Hell. Oh- oh _fucking_ \- oh, _God_ \- you were there for forty fucking years, okay? And- oh God _Dean_ ' (as Dean carves lines between each rib, slow and methodical) 'they hurt you, okay? For- for thirty years. And you became a- _ngh_ \- a torturer.'

'And you really expect me to buy this?'

'I'm telling the truth,' he says through clenched teeth.

Dean doesn't know and doesn't care. He feels so _good_ , doing this, feels free, like a caged animal just released. He feels like surrender.

'So tell me, Sam,' he says. 'What did I do to them? All those poor souls? What did I do?'

Sam coughs, his body jolting with the effort. Blood glistens in his mouth. 'No.'

Dean cups a hand behind his ear. 'Come again?'

When Sam finishes coughing, his eyes are wet. He looks up at Dean. Damn, those eyes just about break his heart. 'Why are you doing this?'

The smallest blade. He puts it beside Sam's left eye, and Sam shies back; Dean grips his jaw in one hand, holding him still.

Sam is trembling. He can feel it.

The knife moves up, tracing a thin red line- barely even a scratch- over one cheekbone. And then it skates over the very surface of Sam's eyeball, the tip of the blade brushing, very, very gently, over the vitreous humour. The pupil. One slip could blind.

An intake of breath, so shallow. The knife slips (except it doesn't, because Dean's knife never slips, not really). Sam makes a wounded noise. His eye is unharmed; his eyelashes are cut off, lying fragiley on Dean's thumb.

Dean whistles. He pinches the eyelashes between thumb and finger, lays them carefully on the table. He crouches in front of Sam, presses the bloody tip of the knife into the vulnerable flesh beneath his chin, like the underbelly of a dragon. Sam's eyes are closed tight.

'We can stop all this, Sam,' he teases. 'Just say the magic word.'

Sam doesn't say anything. It wouldn't really matter if he had. But Dean was expecting some kind of reaction, you know? And maybe he'd've gone easier if he'd've got it.

Instead he is seized with a sudden vicious need to make Sam scream, and memories flicker dark and ugly somewhere, flashes of torn flaps of skin and muscles obscenely exposed.

Dean puts the knife to the soft skin of Sam's stomach, concave from sickness and tension. He can feel the spasming muscles of his diaphram, like broken wings, as Sam's heart rate speeds up further.

The knife isn't the sharpest. He wants to flay away a strip of skin, but he has to saw more than slice, and it's difficult to stop himself going too deep. Sam's eyes pinch tighter, tears forcing their way out, and his hands curl into fists. Dean tenses and waits for the scream.

It never comes. Instead Sam bites hard on his lip until it bleeds.

When Dean climbs up to straddle Sam's legs, when he leans forward and suckles the blood from Sam's lips, when he forces his tongue into the bloody hollow of his mouth, Sam makes a shocked, violated sound.

Dean pulls back. 'You won't scream,' he says. 'I don't get it. The others all screamed. Why won't you scream?'

Sam's eyes fly open, and they glint with rage.

Sam is sick, exhausted, bloodied, flayed, malnourished, tortured, half-naked. It's meant to humiliate, this process; it's meant to debase and to shame. He should be hanging his head, shreiking, passing out.

Why is it, then, that in this moment Dean feels filthy and low? The message in Sam's eyes is there: Sam is a creature of fury and grace, of unimpeachable dignity. He's shaking with blood loss and probably cold but he draws himself up in his seat as far as he can, blood spilling over from numerous cuts as muscles contract. He looks at Dean and all Dean can see is rage.

Nothing that Dean can do will change the fact that, in this moment, Sam is magnificent.

And then he spits at Dean.

Sam spits at Dean. Sam spits at _Dean_. A gobbet of blood and phlegm that hits just below his eye and drips down, and then Sam grins at him with bloodstained teeth and _this should not be possible_.

'You dumb fuck,' Sam slurs out. 'You sick dumb fuck. You think you're gonna do to me anything that hasn't already been done a thousand times? I was in Hell, you fucker, for _centuries_ I was in there, okay, and the things that were- that were done to me-'

Sam tips his head back and laughs, like it's the funniest thing ever.

'There aren't _words_ , Dean,' he says. 'I've been turned inside-out, flayed from head to toe and burned alive, raped raw and starved for centuries and had every bone smashed to shards and felt _every fucking thing_. I've eaten my own fucking warm intestines.'

Dean realises that Sam is probably insane.

'So fucking bring it,' says his little brother, and his eyes are bright.

The sound Sam makes when Dean pours bleach over the flayed skin of his belly is barely human. It's a thin, agonized cry, not quite a gasp, not quite a howl.

Then Sam is sobbing, gasping, eyes glazed and hair hanging forward. His hands scrabble on the chair arms as Dean grasps one of the strips of skin hanging down from his stomach, and _tugs_.

It takes a whole lot more effort than you'd think to tear skin away.

Sam is retching by the time it comes away in Dean's hand, dry-heaving painfully. His fingers curl up like dying spiders with each spasm. Blood spatters the floor. The contracting muscles of his stomach are exposed, and suddenly Dean feels queasy.

God knows what possesses him to do it. Mostly it's the sudden savage urge to make Sam stop (because _God_ that looks like it hurts when he's dry-retching like that, but that was the point, it should hurt, but Dean suddenly can't remember why, and why oh fuck _why_ is it always Sam?).

His fist slams into Sam's stomach on its own volition, and Sam finally screams.

And-

 _(Sammy_.)

(Oh, God, no.)

But no because that glimpse of whateverthefuck is being overtaken, overlaid by _those_ images, home-cut mouths flapping and bloody in people's faces, breasts segmented into sunburst shapes, limbs amputated with a slow-moving chainsaw, fingernails pushed back until they pop out, hot irons applied to eyeballs until they burst like rotten berries, skin and muscle and bone being rubbed away with bloodstained sandpaper and _these things were done to Dean too_

Hell memories. He's got back his Hell memories. He's on the floor, carpet under his cheek (and oh God they stitched his mouth and nose and eyes closed, they ripped his jaw off and bit away his nose with blunt human teeth, _he didn't have a face anymore)_

On his feet. How is he standing? Feet, he usually got rid of those first; there was this one man, paunchy, hairy, and Dean stamped on them til he felt every single bone break, til his feet were messy splintered things barely attached to his legs. There's someone in front of him, handcuffed to a chair, unconscious. Oh, God, is that Sam? Did he do that? The blood is too bright to look at.

He's keening, a bright hard noise, lurching out into the night air. He closes his mouth. His throat is raw. His name is Dean Winchester. His name is Dean Winchester. The fog of memories is lifting now. God, there must be decades' worth of them here.

Somehow he's in the car. His hand is on the keys in the ignition. Muscle memory; maybe he's coded to run. _Sam, what did I do to you?_

He needs his life back. He needs to fill in the gaps, confirm or deny. Either Sam deserves everything he did or Sam deserves nothing he did. And the old woman was keeping the manticore in the cellar.

Halfway through the drive, he's cursing himself for leaving Sam there; he can't even really remember what he did to him, or at least not everything, but it could have been bad, Sam could be like one of those howling faces in the Pit. What if- no. He isn't going to think about that.

When Dean gets out of the Impala, his legs are shockingly steady and there's a gun in his hand. _Focus. Focus_. This is suburbia; why are the streets this empty? Is that _chanting_?

He follows the source of the noise. It's definitely chanting.

The villagers are in the town square. It's like a scene from a woodcut, or from Beauty and the Beast. On a wooden platform, silhouetted against the moon, is a creature. Are all the things he and Sam hunt this fantastical? The outline- it's like a lion, a massive beast, but its head looks tiny and shrunken in comparison to the rest of it.

He only realises that there's somebody tied to a post on the platform when the manticore lays into them with a sound of rending flesh, and they shreik. Dean flinches. The screaming isn't stopping. He breathes through the wave of images. It's not a massive surprise that the townspeople are sacrificing each other to the manticore; he can only wonder what it offered in return, or if it simply offered not to eat them.

(The manticore has a human head; does that make it cannibalism when it eats someone?)

Fuck it, he needs a plan.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, that was tough to write. Comments are, as ever, highly appreciated :) I also realise I need to stop torturing Sam in fic. Also, you probably already realised this, but this fic draws on events that occurred in 7.06, Slash Fiction, so it won't make a whole lot of sense if you haven't seen the episode.


	8. Interlude

Sam knows how pain works. His memories of the Cage are hazy impressions of terror and worship and sensations he hadn't known existed, and nothing could ever be that way, nothing will come close, but he's got his own set of responses these days.

With the small, nasty hurts- pulled teeth and fingernails and the like- one way is to focus on the pain. To study it, absorb yourself into it, analyse the sensation itself. Sam likes this method; it reduces the feelings to something bearable, quantifiable.

But to do that, you have to hold on to some shreds of logic. Even an old hat like Sam can't do that all the time. Sometimes he just has to go away inside, to retreat into some soft dark hollow of his mind and close his eyes. It creates distance, at least.

He's never really been embarassed about screaming. Not since the Cage. He might have gone in there with a bunch of tough-guy resolutions about keeping himself brave for as long as possible, but really, it wasn't as if Lucifer was going to judge him. And you try not screaming when your bones are being pulled out one by steaming one.

Dean is the exception to Sam's rule. It seems that Dean is the exception to a lot of things. Sam can tell himself all kinds of reasons for it, but the real reason he tries to swallow back the screams is probably something deep and Freudian; he'd really rather not poke their issues with a stick. By earth standards, what Dean's done to him is probably a seven, right up to the bleach and the minor flaying. By Hell standards, maybe a nought point six. Or point five.

Shit, his mouth tastes awful. Like sour bile and old pennies.

Sam peels open his eyes after the room has been silent for five minutes. His lashes are all clumped together. It could be blood- he's pretty sure he has a head wound from Dean whacking him with that fucking gun- or tears. His whole face feels tight and itchy, so probably the latter.

He's in shock, he realises; he can feel himself shivering, and prickling hot-cold flushes keep rolling over him. It seems kind of absurd, given that so much worse has been done to him. He doesn't feel that bad, though, overall. The stomach wound is by far the worst- he really ought to be writhing in agony right now. The burn is like someone set him on fire and dropped him in acid, which isn't actually that far from the truth. He'd guess that that wound clocks in at five inches long, two wide; he'll need a skin graft, need a hospital, need-

Dean. Oh, God, Dean, what the fuck happened and was this what he was like in Hell and how could Sam be so fucking dumb and is _that_ what selling his soul did to him-

He's hyperventilating. He can feel his chest heaving; his head is spinning, and he can't pass out now. Sam forces himself back under control. Focus. Focus. That wasn't Dean. Focus. If it was Dean, it was something that Dean couldn't help. Focus. Nobody's fault.

God, he just _turned_ so quickly. The only thing Sam can think of is that finding all that fucking stuff about the leviathan shootings must have triggered something in Dean. He'd thought he was a killer, a psychopath; perhaps he tapped into his torturer-persona. Or perhaps he just really fucking hates Sam, deep down (and that's not true, Sam _knows_ that, but _God_ it's hard not to think like that when he's seen the contempt in Dean's eyes). Perhaps it's just old urges coming back to bite them both in the ass.

Dean's been gone about ten minutes now, he thinks. The most likely scenario is that Dean will kill the manticore, get the eye, and stagger back in about fifteen hours' time. Then- who knows? He seemed like he was having some kind of Hell flashback when he lurched out, muttering about fingernails and crucifiction and all kinds of shit Sam doesn't want to think about. Maybe when he comes back he'll release Sam and drive him to the nearest hospital. Or maybe he'll go on torturing him. Hell, Sam doesn't even know that Dean _did_ go off to kill the manticore. He's probably passed out in an alley somewhere.

But if he _is_ having Hell flashbacks, and he _did_ go to kill the manticore...

That sounds like a death sentence to Sam. He ought to know.

Moving is a tremendous effort, but he manages to tug against the cuffs. God, even that clenches his stomach muscles; the exposed strip where skin's been removed feels like it's been sandpapered.

If he doesn't do this, Dean could die. Even if Dean doesn't die, he might never get back his memories without Sam's help. If Dean doesn't get back within about a day, the muscle beneath Sam's flayed patch of skin will dry and harden. Will probably get infected, too, and then he's screwed.

Sam breathes in deep, ignoring the foul taste of his mouth. He reaches for the anger that seized him earlier.

The cuffs are tight.

But they're not _that_ tight.

Sam grits his teeth, and pulls.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As ever, comments are love. And you can ask me anything (it don't even have to be related to my fic, I'm dying for someone to squeal to about the incoming Sherlock special) over at http://dirigibleboyking.tumblr.com/.


	9. Chapter 9

Dean wakes up with blood in his mouth and no memory of the last six hours. He's in total darkness; he seems to be lying on some kind of concrete floor, and there's a smell of damp.

A cellar, then. Sam is probably somewhere close by; hopefully he evaded whatever caught Dean. Or maybe Sam is down here with him, unconscious, but if that's so Dean has no way of knowing where he is; it's pitch-black, and he's disorientated. He probes at his memories. Sam went to stake out the creepy lady house, right? It feels hours ago. Dean's sure something else has happened since, but he can't put his finger on it. The last thing he remembers is tossing Sam the car keys, and Sam smiling, tentatively, before walking out the motel door.

He's not sure why but he has a feeling that this is quite bad.

'Cas,' he says, praying to a tale of Sam's, 'wherever the fuck you are, I definitely have a concussion.'

*

He stands up cautiously, but nothing starts swaying- not that he'd be able to tell, it's black as a fucking tomb in here. Spitting the blood out of his mouth, Dean feels his way to a wall, and slides down against it.

He doesn't _feel_ like he broke anything. Should probably have Sam check him over later, though. Heh. That could end well. Dean replays last night- darkness, darkness just like this, and the hot satin of Sam's cock in his hand. He's concerned that Sam would give him what he wanted just because it was _Dean_ , whether it was something he should be wanting or not.

Suddenly all the _shoulds_ seem slightly tedious. Dean wants Sam now; it's likely, then, that Past Dean also wanted Sam. And Dean _likes_ Sam, that's the thing. A weird tug is starting to pull at him at the sight of his brother. It's those big fuzzy eyes; he just can't help himself. Dude's like ten and a half feet and Dean wants to sweep him up and cuddle him and feed him salad. And when he remembers how sick he looked that morning, he can't help but worry.

Fuck, Dean should never have let him go on stakeout alone. He's sure there was a reason why he did, but he can't recall it now. It can't have been as important as Sam's health, whatever it was. Christ, what if something had happened to Sam on stakeout? Was that why he was alone down here- because Sam had been caught or _worse_ and Dean had come out looking for him?

Wasn't his memory holey enough before? He's lost thirty-four years to this spell. Must he really lose a crucial six hours, too?

And what the hell is he doing just _sitting_ here?

He starts to feel his way round the wall. The floor's uneven in places, and he stumbles a couple times. His heart jolts when he finds the outline of a door, and then a doorknob- but it's locked, of course.

Dean feels round his pockets. They're all empty, unsurprisingly- whoever caught him would have patted him down. The tops of his socks contain nothing but a candy wrapper. Desperation growing, he pulls off his boot-

 _There_. The tinkle of a bobby-pin on a concrete floor. He scrabbles in the dark and grabs it. _Sam, you better fucking be alright_.

But he will be. He must be. He can't not be. And if he isn't- Dean will fix whatever needs to be fixed, hold whatever needs holding, he'll stop pestering for answers for a damn _month_ , just _let Sam be okay_. Shit, when did Sam start mattering so much? He met him about three days ago. Well, not really, but still.

Dean works the bobby-pin into the lock, and he could cry when he hears the _click_ after thirty seconds. That was too easy, part of him thinks, but he pushes the door-

-and it doesn't budge.

Oh God no.

He tries again. It doesn't move.

Dean puts his back into it the third time, and now he can only conclude that the door is bolted, heavily, from the outside.

'C'mon, don't do this to me,' says Dean helplessly.

The door continues to do everything it is already doing.

'Oh fuck,' Dean says. 'Oh fucking fucking fucking fuck.'

He smashes his shoulder into the door as hard as he can. Still; nothing.

'Mother _fucker_.'

It takes a good fifteen minutes of throwing himself against the door before he realises he isn't going anywhere. He carries on anyway, until he's battered and bruised and sweating; he feels his way all over the room, looking for some kind of tool, but it's empty. The floor's concrete, and he chips his nails on it; he jumps to try and reach the ceiling, and stubs his toes trying to kick through a wall.

When there's nothing else that he can think of, he stands behind the door and starts to count.

He's reached six thousand, four hundred and twelve when a line of light appears below the door. Dean stiffens.

There's a sound of bolts going back, and the door begins to open-

Dean throws all his weight at the door, and it swings back into whoever's on the other side. There's an 'Oof' sound, and he runs through the open door, down a brightly lit corridor.

He's gone maybe ten steps when every muscle in his body locks up and he drops to the ground, spasming. His nerve endings are tingling with something that's not quite pain. It subsides, and he's left in a heap on the ground, a line of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth.

From the corner of his eye, a fuzzy shape limps forward and stands over him. Dean tries to speak, but all that comes out is a strangled groan.

The shape tuts at him. It's getting clearer now. It looks like- fucking Christ, it's an old lady. He's never seen her before, though. Is she a witch or something?

'Now aren't you just the prettiest thing,' she says. 'But my, your mind's as holey as a swiss cheese. Now how did that happen?'

And Dean feels his limbs move against his will, pulling him to a standing position. His legs walk him forward like a marionette, head hanging down so he can only see the floor, hands behind his back. Panic lurches in his chest. _Sam, now would be a great time_.

Black shutters over his eyes.

*

'Don't think I don't know why you're here.'

He's tied to a chair; he can feel the ropes digging in. They're too tight.

'You're here for our manticore, aren't you? I can only assume that you're after its eyes. Important for spellwork, those are, but you already knew that.'

He peels open his eyes.

'Oh, look. _It's awake_.'

The old lady's sitting on a chair in front of him. They're in a kitchen. Dean's mouth is dry and he stinks of sweat, but he manages to shape the words. 'What have you done with my brother?'

She laughs. It's so like a cackle that Dean rolls his eyes. 'It looks like he's a little late to the party.'

Dean wants to push, but he changes tack. If Sam isn't here, if he's safe, then the less she knows the better. 'You can't keep a creature like that locked up, lady. Trust me.'

The woman leans forward. 'And what makes you think I'm keeping it locked up?'

He draws his head back.

A man bursts through the open door, panting. 'Sarah, it's hungry. Come on.'

'Just a second,' the old woman says. She looks at Dean, almost pityingly. 'I'm doing you a favour, sweetie. Trust me, I'm a witch; I can tell when someone's memories have been erased. And it looks like you got a pretty interesting cocktail of spells.'

When Dean didn't answer, she smiled. 'Still feeling the side-effects, are we? It'll be over soon.'

'Wait,' says Dean. 'Wait. How did you catch me? What the hell happened?'

She laughs again, and Dean winces. 'You came rushing right at us. We thought you'd gone feral, dearie, but I think it was just a slight malfunction of that spell you've got muddling up your brain. You were screaming-' she pretends to shudder- ' _all_ kinds of nasty things. You went straight for our manticore, and I really think it's out for blood.'

The man comes forward; he loops Dean's wrists together with what feel like zip ties, cuts the rope, and grabs Dean by the shoulders, yanking him up from the chair and forcing him to stumble to the door. Somewhere out in the night, he hears a screaming roar, and suddenly Dean is afraid.

'Why are you doing this?' he says to the man. 'I get _her_ , but why you?'

But the man's face remains grim as he shoves Dean out of the door. The witch follows them, with her tinkling laugh.

'What the fuck is so funny,' says Dean, almost spitting.

'Oh, dear,' the witch says, smiling. 'You see, manticores? Almost deities. As long as we give it what it wants, it gives us wealth, fortune, peace. Gives this man a family, that woman a miracle cure. So forgive them if they aren't lining up to plead your case.'

'You're sick,' says Dean furiously, 'you're fucking _sick_ -'

He's being bundled out into the street, and now there's the butt of a shotgun sticking into his back. 'Walk,' says the man behind him. 'And shut your fucking mouth.'

Another of those terrible shreiks, like a human throat trying to imitate a wild beast's battle cry. Dean can't help shuddering. _Sam, wherever you are,_ please. It's cold out here, and he's only in a shirt. God, what made him leave the motel like that on a cold-

There's blood on his shirt.

Not much. Only a few spots here and there. Not enough that he would have registered it earlier. And not his.

Someone has done something to Sam.

Dean grabs the end of the zip tie, pulling it as tight as he can. He jerks his arms up backwards, hitting the man in the chin, and hits his wrists hard on his own ass. The zip ties break, and he bolts. When he brings his hands forward, seeing them for the first time, they're covered in blood. Even under his nails.

Wait.

Did-

Did _he_?

Then a heavy weight crashes into him from behind and his chin hits the ground. He struggles, but his captor already has a hold of his wrists, and the guy pulls him back to his feet. 'SAM!' Dean yells. ' _SAM_!'

He's cut off quickly by a punch to the jaw. He tries to headbutt, but the man's half-dragging him across the deserted road. God, why is it so quiet? He knows it's suburbia and all. Do they all know about the manticore? Are they all scared to leave their homes? Sam could be anywhere, and Dean already knows what's happened to him, if he could only _remember_. The six missing hours is the key.

He's being herded into the town square, and something like deja vu stirs in him. _Come on_ , he tells it, _come on_ , but he still remembers nothing. There's a wooden stage in the centre of it, and he forces himself not to look up at the creature up there... the roars are much louder now. The only people round the platform are men, six or seven of them, all huge and muscular with shotguns and terrified eyes. Guards. The entire town's been keeping this thing alive.

They near the stage. In front of it, they stop. So do the snarling noises.

Dean looks up.

The manticore is on all fours on the stage, hackles raised. Its human head looks the size of a potato compared to the monstrous, gleaming body, muscles shifting beneath thick fur. The head is bald, but dwarfed by the reddish ruff of a mane, and a tail swings impatiently back and forth like a pendulum. And its eyes are rheumy, milky like spider eyes or pearls.

It's hideous. It's beautiful. It's chained to a post.

He understands, now, why they worship it.

Dean knows without the shadow of a doubt that he is about to die, and it will have been worth it just to see this twisted beast with the moonlight-silvered fur.

His heart is beating very fast.

Hands drag him onto the stage, up wooden steps. He is three feet away; there is a stench of meat and rotten fruit. It strains at its chains, a vein bulging in its human forehead.

He hears the men retreating down the steps. He's alone on the stage. A small part of his mind tells him that they only did that because they know he's under its thrall, because they don't want to fall into the cobwebs of its gaze too.

 _This isn't right_ , he thinks, but it is, it _is_.

 _Move_ , he thinks, but he doesn't know whether he means backwards or forwards.

Against his will his feet start moving. He tries to stop but the manticore's moony eyes are reeling him in, and he's about to die, he's about to die without remembering anything or knowing what happened (what he did) to Sam, and it's crouching to spring and its jaw is unhinging as he watches and it's obscene, any second now-

A gunshot.

'OUT OF THE WAY!'

The manticore's eyes glaze over. It wobbles to one side, then topples. Shot.

Dean looks round.

Sam is striding forward, only the merest hint of a limp, only the merest hint of a face pinched with pain, and he's pointing a gun at the cluster of men and he's too far away and fuck what's wrong with his _hands_? 'It's over,' Sam's shouting at the men, 'Your fucking pet is dead, go, _run_ ,' and they do, they just scatter and run because of one gun, and Dean stands dumbly and wonders if the manticore had worked some magic on them after all.

It's thee steps up to the stage, and Sam winces coming up every one of them. Dean snaps out of it and goes to grab his hand, but Sam jerks back from the offer, not even looking at him. He limps straight by him, hand going to a container in his pocket. It's full of a thick, pinkish gloop.

Sam kneels by the manticore's body, his whole face taut with what is obviously agony (so why doesn't Dean move?), and pulls out a pocket-knife. He digs out the manticore's left eye with delicate, levering movements- it's tiny, the size of a small grape- and lets it fall into the container in his hand.

Then he straightens painfully up and hits Dean in the jaw.

Shocked, Dean goes down gasping. Sam's on top of him, face twisted, pinching Dean's nose with bloodstained fingers until he opens his mouth, and then Sam pours the contents of the container straight down his throat.

Dean's vision blurs. He gags, pitching forward onto his knees. He dimly registers Sam collapsing beside him, but he's being swamped by remembrances, too many to pinpoint, flooding in like seawater

dust smile rose sex wreck _sam what is that shirt_ monster meat pale laughing _dad no_ drunk nestled _just a baby_ veined kindly junkyard

forty years forty fucking years

(they put Sam in a _Cage_ )

golem paintwork bright torture snow missouri swamp turkey _dude that's gross_

why are you the boy that hates christmas

only he gets to call me that

(Sam died Sam died in his arms and all he can think is Sammy you child, you fucking _child_ )

(the Trials, he was never just ill, it was the Trials and oh God _Sammy_ what did I do to you)

-he tortured him. He _tortured_ Sam for no reason other than his shitty fucking latent trauma or whatever-

(Because his Sammy is sick and fuck, he could die in his fucking sleep and then what the hell would Dean be able to adore the shit out of? He could get run the fuck over or poisoned or get cancer or a brain haemhorrage or, hell, get killed on a hunt, it could happen so fucking easily, and then it'd be Game Fucking Over because Dean is not doing this without his little bitch of a kid brother. Because he loves the skinny dumbass more than anything in the entire world and who said that it was _okay_ to love anything so fragile so much, who fucking said that, because love doesn't do much fucking good when Sam's puking blood into the sink, okay?)

-and then he's drowning in a quicksand of memories.

*

Five minutes (thirty-four years) later, Dean gets to his knees.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was an absolute bitch to write, so comments much appreciated. Thanks for all the support, guys- it really means a lot.


	10. Chapter 10

Here's the thing: when Sam was a kid, he was so _little_. This tiny, bony, bewildered thing that followed Dean everywhere, and okay, that got irritating sometimes, but he could never have told him to go away. Sam was just so stubborn, so damned persistent; he was a brave kid, and that more than anything set a pulse of fear in Dean's chest at the thought of him hunting.

He just wanted to protect him, okay? But when you're this deep in the life, when you see the things Dean sees on a daily basis- that gets twisted up into something else. And at least when Sam got hurt he could do the bandaging, you know? Who would Dean even be if he hadn't spent so many hours putting Sam back together, stitch by stitch and step by step? How can he explain that doing that helps him remember how to put himself back together, too?

It isn't like that this time, of course.

Dean could probably list them in his sleep. Twenty-eight stitches- most of the cuts are shallow enough for butterfly bandages, but some of them go deeper. Two broken ribs from fuck knows when, mottling Sam's side with bruises. Both thumbs dislocated, now in splints. A transfusion and IV line for the blood loss. And a full-thickness skin graft on his stomach, dressed with clear plastic- a wound Dean can barely look at. His eyes keep going to it anyway. The replaced strip of skin is smaller than he thought.  
No signs of blood, except for what still clings to Dean beneath his clothes. Peeling and flaking now, but he can't leave Sam for something as banal as a shower. They've got Sammy on the good stuff, thank God, and he's still unconscious from the surgery. Dean doesn't even know if he should be in the room with him right now, but he doesn't really consider himself capable of leaving.

Usually, in this sort of situation- Sam comatose in a hospital- Dean would be talking to him, trying to sound chatty, bring him back. But in this case that would be- absurd. And he just can't. And maybe Sam doesn't even want to wake up this time. He wouldn't blame him. Being tortured by the person who's supposed to protect you isn't usually a cakewalk. He has no idea how they're going to deal with that whole aspect of it. He's been given speeches about trauma, about how this is going to be a long road to recovery, but the doctors think Dean is blameless here. They only see the man who's been on standby for forty-six hours straight, not sleeping, not eating, drinking only fruit juice handed to him in a plastic cup by a nurse. The man who hauled Sam in and jogged his leg up and down in the waiting room for hours after Sam disappeared on a gurney.  
Dean can't even think about what he did to Sam. He just can't. So he sits and he watches Sam's profile and he waits, and Christ he needs a drink but it seems so damned self-indulgent to be slugging whiskey and wallowing right now.

He needs to be strong so that when Sam wakes up one of them can stop being crazy. If he's strong enough, perhaps he'll stop wanting to pull Sam in and kiss him. Perhaps he could be strong enough to forget about _that_ night, the night Dean jerked Sam off (and now he's casting his mind back, searching for the fault lines in his memories, wondering how much of that was Sam being tired and sick and confused and Dean taking advantage. _Tell me to stop_ ).

And as for the rest of it- the torture- they'll deal. They _always_ deal. But then there's the stupid Trials and how are they going to even find the fucking _time_ to work through all this?

Dean's glazed over, so lost within his own thoughts that he only snaps to attention when he hears a tiny sound.

'Sam?'

Sam's head shifts, lolls, dark hair spreading over the pillow. His eyes open a fraction, unfocused, and Dean's heart is going to pound right out of his chest. 'Sam. Sammy. It's okay, c'mon, you can wake up for me, right?'

Sam blinks slowly. His eyes gain some lucidity. Then- 'Dean.'

A nothing reaction. 'You're okay, Sam. You're in hospital, so just- just sit tight, alright?'

Dean,' says Sam again, and his eyes well up in a way that makes Dean want to hurt something, and tears start trailing silent lines down his face. He doesn't curl up and sob, but that- that Dean could handle. He realises his hands are hovering a millimetre over Sam's big, too-thin ones, and yanks them back; he's not allowed to touch Sam. 'Sam. Sam. Sammy. Shit.'

' _Dean_ ,' and Sam's voice sounds choked.  
'Don't cry. Shit, don't cry, Sam.' He's trying to comfort his brother without touching him, hands palms-outwards, awkwardly skimming over Sam with flighty motions. Sam moves as if he's going to try to sit up. 'Don't move, you'll hurt yourself. Are you in pain?'

'I- I don't know. Don't touch me.'

It hurts. He expected it, deserves it, but- it hurts. 'You... do you-' Fuck, should he even be asking this? 'Do you remember?'

Sam brings shaky hands up to his face, knuckling away tears, wincing as the movement tugs on sore muscles. It's a long moment before he replies. 'Yeah.'

An indrawn breath. 'Shit... Sam.'

Sam visibly pulls himself together, breathing in as deep as he can without pain, closing his eyes for a moment.

'Do you- do you need morphine?'

His brother looks down at the morphine drip going into the back of his hand. An odd expression flits over his face. 'No.'

'Sam, if you're hurting-'

'I said no.'

He withdraws. 'Right.'

There's a long silence. Sam is pulling in breaths, rasping and shallow and painful. Dean stares at his hands. Over the past hours he's become used to the sight of the bruises on Sam's face, but now he's ashamed.

'How much of it was you?'

He turns his head back to Sam. 'What?'

Sam's braced himself. Dean knows that look. 'How much of it. Was you.'

 _Nothing_ , he almost blurts out. He wants to, and God knows if Sam would even believe him, but Sam's always been the trusting one, right? And how much of it _was_ him, really?

Shame hits him almost as soon as he thinks it. He deserves Sam's contempt; he was in control and he's not going to bullshit his way out of this. He can't. It's _Sam_.

'I don't know,' he says.

Sam gives a jerky nod, turning his face away, and Dean just- yeah. Can't. 'Sammy.'

No response. He's itching to cover Sam's hand with his own, but he registers his own still-raw knuckles just in time. 'Sam. I am so, _so_ goddamned-'

'Don't, Dean,' Sam says. 'Just- don't. Please.'

It's not as if he didn't know this would come, but still. 'Sammy, I gotta say this, man.'

'I know. Just- not now, Dean, okay. I just- I can't do this now.'

He's almost surprised when his vision wavers, tears stinging at his eyes. Shit, he's got no right to cry. 'That's fine, Sam.'

If Sam catches the waver in his voice, he doesn't say anything.

*

Sam wants to leave.

'Look at this pragmatically, Dean. Our insurance is a piece of shit, they probably suspect you, and as long as I don't do anything stupid I'll be fine.'

'You're kidding me, right? You're on antibiotics, Sam!'

'Dude, I can take some goddamned pills without falling over, okay?'

'Quit it. You were in _surgery_ , you're weak from the Trials-'

'It wouldn't be the first time we went AMA, Dean. Or the fiftieth.'

'Skin grafts, Sam! It's not like a broken leg, okay?'

'Dean, what's your problem? I'm fine, I'll be-'

'We're not leaving. _Fucking cut it out_.'

He only realises he's right up in Sam's face when Sam flinches. He pulls back so fast he almost topples over. 'Fuck,' he says.

'I,' says Sam, looking down, 'I didn't-'

'No,' he says. 'I- Sorry.'

For the next few moments he has the impression that they're both looking away, blinking back sudden tears. _You're not scared of me, are you?_ He wants to ask, but he knows what the answer would be, and neither of them can take much more lying.

Still, though.

'We're staying,' he says. He sounds tired even to himself. 'Sam, I- I'm guessing I'm the last person you want taking care of you right now.'

Sam doesn't move. He stares at the covers where his hands are laid over them.

'But that's what'll happen when we leave. So- just- this is for the best. Okay?'

'We leave tomorrow,' Sam says, still not looking at him. 'Tomorrow or I go by myself.'

His insides constrict at that. 'Yeah. Okay. Tomorrow. Swear.'

They sit.

He hates hospitals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the mammoth wait, guys, I'll try to have the next one up within the week. Blame mocks. They suck. As ever, comments are love. You're all wonderful- the feedback I've received has been really inspiring.


	11. Chapter 11

It's funny; Dean kind of assumed he'd be able to talk Sam out of his resolution to leave the next day. Maybe that says something about how passive Sam's become lately- or, Hell, maybe it says something about Dean. Who the fuck knows.

But Sam is implacable.

It's been so long since he insisted on something- really insisted- that Dean's forgotten how to wheedle. He hasn't forgotten how to _argue_ , but neither of them need that right now. It's not that he's worried about what might happen if he himself flips out. He's not. The spell's gone, after all; there's nothing to worry about.

It's just better when they don't argue.

Somehow Sam manages to persuade Dean to steal some scrubs from a supply closet and casually abduct him out of there. Getting him into the wheelchair is the hardest part- trying to get Sam his feet wrenches on his stitches, and his face goes ashy-grey and he clutches at Dean's elbow. But it's smooth sailing, mostly. Sam doesn't try to protest when Dean puts him into the Impala's backseat, and Dean's grateful. They drive.

*

It's a long way back to Lebanon.

'It's fine, Dean,' Sam's voice comes from the backseat. It's disconcerting; Dean isn't used to Sam sitting back there like that. 'I can handle it. We don't have to stop.'

'Dude, you aren't seriously suggesting I drive for sixteen hours solid,' he says lightly. 'I know _you_ can handle it. Give a guy a break.'

Sam goes silent. _Touch_ _é_.

'How are you,' says Dean after a while. 'Are you feeling okay?'

A sense of cautious surprise.

'A little sore,' Sam says tentatively. 'Uh- my throat hurts. But I- I'm good.'

Then: 'How are you feeling, Dean?'

He almost swerves off the road. 'Ha-ha, Sam.'

'Not joking.'

'Is this where you let me apologise, then?'

'No. Sorry.'

Dean lets out a heavy breath through his nose. Ahead of him, the road is spangled violet with rain-light, water tattooing against the dash. He's very tempted to push the issue; he reminds himself of Sam's condition. Then scoffs at himself. 'Condition'; it makes it sound like a terminal illness.

Sam's going to get better. As soon as the demons are locked away they can get back to normal. Sam's going to be fine.

'It isn't anything- it's not your fault,' says Sam, and Dean takes a second to connect the two threads of the conversation, because what about this _isn't_ his fault? 'I just need time. To think.'

He keeps his voice moderate. 'Whatever you need.'

He pulls off at the Monkey Bizness Motel. The owner charges by the hour and doesn't blink when Dean asks for a room on the end. It's not til he gets back to the car that it occurs to him that Sam might not want to be in the same room as Dean.

Deciding not to ask just yet, he starts to unfold the wheelchair they took from out the back of the car. At the sound, Sam's head jerks up. 'What are you doing?

'Getting the wheelchair.'

'What? Dean- wait.' Sam tries to open the car door. 'Stop. I want to walk.'

'Are you kidding me?' Alright, so this is hardly out of character, but why does Sam have to do this _now_? When Dean would have to be sadistic to refuse to listen to him?

Wincing, Sam begins to extend his legs out of the car, and Dean makes up his mind. He goes to Sam and puts his hands under the other's armpits, ignoring the way Sam closes his eyes as if suppressing a shiver. Hauls him upright. They start off at an uneven walk towards the motel.

It's quiet, thank fuck, because Dean's brain hurts. The room isn't so bad, either. There seems to be some kind of jungle-theme going on (leopard-print curtains, parrot wall dividers, no appliances in sight) and there's a mysterious brown stain on the carpet. As he looks at it an image flashes out at him- Sam's blood, seeping out from under the chair like an accusation, and he wonders what the hell the police thought when they found that room.

Sam makes a small noise when he sees the stain. It could be distaste, or it could be for the same reasons as Dean. He ignores it, depositing Sam on the bed.

'Dean,' says Sam, voice low.

'Yeah, Sam?' He slings his duffel onto the other bed and sets about unpacking. He needs to clean the shotguns.

'I think we should talk about this.'

And, oh Christ, he knows just what that'll lead to. Screaming at each other like kids, Sam crying and Dean seperated by an impossible divide, _the I hate you_ s and _the I should never have come back to you_ s hanging thick between them. _The what have you done_ s. The _what have you done to me_ s (he can't answer). And the invitable parting of ways, maybe for the last time because now Dean's _really_ screwed up, and this could be the last time he ever sees Sam and he can't do that, not tonight.

But Sam also has every right to hate Dean. To walk away.

'Yeah, Sammy, okay,' he finds himself saying. It comes out rougher than he thought. 'Just, uh- I need to go on a supply run, okay? Get some stuff.'

Sam shifts on the bed, wincing when it pulls on his stitches. 'Can't it wait?'

His voice is small. Scratchy. And he looks so fucking sick- skin white and blotchy, a hell of a black eye, skin around his other eye and his nose pink and sore. Lips cracked, hair tangled and greasy. A faint tremor running through his hands.

When he took down the manticore Sam seemed taller than God; now he's diminished somehow, folded into himself, and it hurts to think that Dean did that, that he broke that. It hurts that he touched one goddamned thing in the Bunker that he shouldn't have and now Sam knows what a monster he was in Hell. And Sam's been so strange lately. Not bad-strange, not aggressive or anything. But gentler with each passing day, as if his soul is growing like a sunflower to fill his body, leaving him naked-eyed and so strangely _together_ , so strangely complete, as if his skin is tearing to let a kind of light bleed through.

Untouchable.

Shaking off the reverie. 'I'll be back before you know it.'

He doesn't look back when he leaves. If he did, he probably wouldn't be able to walk out the door.

*

The Impala has dried blood on the seats, and Dean fumbles around with a tissue and spit trying to clean it off. Even when it's gone, he's sure the stink remains, rank and crawling. Like a freshly butchered animal. He never minded the smell of blood before; Sam hated it, of course, but it made Dean feel- clean. Being elbow-deep in a kill can be weirdly purging. Like in Purgatory, where he'd felt nothing but alive- exhausting and terrifying and painfully right.

Getting out of the Impala, he enters a 24-hour grocery store. Feels like a there's a pane of glass between himself and the rest of the world, and God, he's tired. A woman knocks into him, and he only really notices when she apologises. The store is empty, the lighting bright and flat, and he wanders into the vegetable aisle. Where he and Sam were, only a few days before, before everything went to shit.

'Your stomach was a garbage disposal. And you loved pie,' and his little smile, turning half-away from Dean. 'Not a bad cook, though.'

Oh, _Sam_.

How? How the fuck had it happened? How the hell had his amnesiac self gone from increasingly fond of Sam- increasingly protective, even- to all-out raging psychopath mode? All he remembers after finding the video of the leviathan shoot-out is a wall of rage and betrayal and even a little sadness. When he'd laid eyes on Sam it had been like flipping a switch; regretful and horrified to Full Metal Jacket. And it wasn't just all his Hell baggage; he'd kept a lid on it for years, there was no reason for it to crop up again randomly like that.

Had the amnesia-curse thing had a few side-effects, then? Because there had been the memory-loss after the torture- and the old lady, the old lady saying _still not over the side-effects, are we_? and _fuck_ has he figured this out? Has he figured it out?

He's standing in the vegetable aisle and his heart is pounding with animal panic. If he doesn't move he's going to go crazy. Dean starts to weave restlessly through the store, grabbing first-aid kits, a bag of apples, some salad shit, wholemeal bread because he's sick of Sam bitching about cholesterol. The idea of himself eating at the moment is ludicrous, though he feels all hollowed-out; he's never been less hungry, the image of Sam's carved-up body still before his eyes.

And as soon as he reaches the Impala he has to get back. To the motel, but also the bunker- there he can poke around, see if he's right and he's not an evil bastard after all and then if it was the spell, if it really was just a side-effect that led to Hell-Dean resurfacing, maybe, just maybe Sam won't leave. And if Sam stays-

He puts the pedal to the metal.

It's not a long drive. Ten minutes. All in all, Dean's probably been away less than half an hour. That's not long. Everything should be okay.

When he reaches the motel car park he can feel the silence humming against his skin, and it makes him shiver.

Collecting the groceries from the car. Med kit clutched between his teeth. He can barely fumble his key out of his pocket, he's got so many bags on his arms. Turning it in the lock, and nothing happens. The door's- open?

But he locked it.

He locked it.

Dean opens the door. The room is dark. The carefully-chosen bags of food slide to the floor. When he flicks on the light-switch the room is empty. He blinks, casting eyes over everything, as if Sam could have blended in with the wallpaper somehow. He pulls the covers back on a bed that's obviously empty. But it's still fine- Sam must be in the bathroom. Maybe he fell and tore his stitches and the thought should be terrifying, but at least that'd mean Sam was here and could be patched up.

When he opens the bathroom door it's empty. Dean double-checks the bathtub, yanking back the shower curtain. The window is closed.

Gone. He's gone.

The exhaustion and horror of the past few days swells. Dean is shipwrecked, cut adrift, no shining thread of Sam to follow home (no Sam to tease, to fight with, to bitch out for buying the wrong kind of beer). Despair rises in his throat in a consuming ache. No Sam to tell his new plan, and Dean won't see hope bloom in those gentle eyes, won't work the knots out of his hair with shampooey hands the way he was planning to when Sam let him, won't ever get to say how goddamn sorry he is, how terribly terribly sorry-

A wave of dizziness. He stumbles where he stands; God, it's been ages since he ate. Ages and ages. Or slept. Fucking fuck- the world's sort of fading in and out- this is bad. Really fucking bad.

Dean feels his knees buckle. Ratty motel carpet beneath his hands.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was incredibly late. Sorry, guys- still having computer trouble over here. Thank you for the wonderful response to this fic, & comments help me get up in the morning, as ever :D


	12. Chapter 12

'Fuck.'

Something scratching.

'Dean. Oh, God.'

A light thump. He just wants to _sleep_ , goddamn it.

'Dean. Dean. Dean. Wake up. Jesus Christ, Dean, _wake up_.'

Sam.

Dean jolts upright, heaving in breaths, hands already going to clutch at Sam's shirtfront.

'Yeah, buddy, s'me, come on,' Sam intonates, but his voice sounds different now, as if he's locked a part of himself away.

Sam tries to help Dean to his feet and staggers a little, so Dean gets up himself in time to catch Sam's arm. They're both wincing. Sam is drawn and pale and he doesn't even want to think about what he looks like.

'Sam,' he says when he's finally upright.

'Yeah,' says Sam. There's an awkwardly sized patch of carpet between them.

He takes a second to get his voice under control. His 'Where were you?' still comes out way more tremulous than he'd've liked, but there's no time to think about that because Sam's staring at the floor. 'Sam?' he raises his voice. 'Where the hell were you? Do you know how freaking worried I was?'

'I kinda figured,' said Sam, voice subdued. He hasn't looked up.

' _And_?'

'I'm here, aren't I?'

Sam walks painfully over to one of the beds and sits down.

Dean's raking his hands through his hair. He's trying not to get angry here. He really _cannot_ get angry here. 'Uh, _yeah_ , Sam. I'm just pretty freaking curious as to what's so damn important that it can't wait until your stitches heal.'

'Nothing, okay? Nothing.'

'Are you kidding me?'

Sam spreads his hands. 'Can't we just drop this?'

No, he's about to say, no, we can't fucking drop this, Sammy, but he stops himself just about in time. The effort it takes to restrain himself almost hurts.

Sam, looking at him, lets out a breath. His forehead wrinkes; he looks almost sympathetic.

'Sam,' says Dean, once he's sure he's not going to start shouting, 'I get why you- I get that you're going to have some reservations right now, but, man, I promise you, I'm not going to flip out again.'

'That's not what I'm worried about,' says Sam quietly.

'And once this is sorted out, once you're better, if you want to- y'know- head off, I'm not gonna stop you. Not after what happened.' Dean eyes Sam, but his face gives nothing away. 'And you gotta know how sorry I am, and you gotta know that I would give anything to go back and stay the fuck out of whatever box I was poking around in in the bunker, and you gotta know that I-'

Breaking off. It's not often that he's short on words, but there's no possible way to convey this sort of appalling regret. He slides his eyes to the floor, face suddenly burning. It's too fucking hot in this room.

A hand on his shoulder.

'Sit down,' says Sam, not ungently. 'Get something to eat. And get some sleep, okay? I'm fine. You're fine. It's okay.'

And it's not okay, not even close, but Dean lets himself be steered towards the bed even though he knows it should be him doing this for Sam. Lets Sam nudge food towards him. 'Only if you eat too,' he says, and Sam gives him a pale sort of grin. 'Don't really wanna be puking with all these stitches, Dean.'

That shuts him right up.

Sam gets into the next bed and turns over onto his side, facing away from Dean. He finishes the burger, turns the lamp off, and shuffles down in bed. He feels strange and heavy after eating late at night, and his mouth tastes weird but he's too tired to get up to clean his teeth.

Just when he's dozing off, Sam's voice comes softly through the dark.

'I don't blame you, you know,' he says. Dean's never sure, afterwards, whether he dreamt it or not.

*

Dean wakes at dawn. When he opens their room door, he's hit by the smell of rain. The sunrise is reflected in puddles that dot the parking lot.

Back in the room Sam's still asleep, brow furrowed, one hand half-covering his face. Dean gets their stuff into the car, packed up and ready to go, before letting Sam sleep in. It's probably the best thing for him right now.

By ten they're in the Impala on the way back to the Bunker. Sam's still digging the heels of his hands into his eyes and yawning. They haven't spoken beyond the cursory _have you seen my green boxers?_ and _take your antibiotics, dude, I shouldn't even be having to tell you._ Sam dozes most of the way, and Dean turns his head to look at him every so often, stomach clenching guiltily.

'Dean, put a freaking sock in it,' says Sam without looking up.

Rigidly Dean fixes his eyes on the road. He can feel the tips of his ears going red.

It's late afternoon when they get to Lebanon. Dean brings in the bags while Sam collapses into a chair, and when everything's unpacked he pours a whiskey from them both. It's strange to be back here after his memory-slip. It seemed a much more clinical place when he'd lost his memories, but now the shine of lamplight on the polished tables is a reassurance.

He's got three bottles of whiskey hidden under his mattress. He's been kind of trying to lay off the drink lately, what with Sam getting sick and all, but they're in case of emergency and this definitely qualifies. His brain suddenly feels crammed and old and far too complex, and he needs to dull all that crackling to a gentle buzz, needs to find the space where he can be content even if he'll pay for it next morning.

Something makes him look at Sam then. Sam looks all knotted up right now, pale and pained, hair limp, slumped over in the chair. Dean reaches for the guilt and finds nothing. He seems to have pretty much reached full capacity on self-blame, at least for the moment. And for the first time in a long time, he lets himself wonder how Sam would feel if he knew about the whiskey under the mattress. What he'd say. Whether he'd say anything, or just give Dean that awful sympathetic _nothing you do surprises me anymore_ look. Sam had never mentioned Dean's drinking in the past, not really. But it had bothered him. The closest they'd ever come to hashing it out was Sam's timid intimation one night that coping with drink was what _Dad_ had done.

'And your point is?' Dean had said, being an asshole and knowing it. Sam had looked away, going red.

He's never really felt bad about his drinking habits. Whatever you gotta do to get through the day, right? After some of the shit he's seen he's probably entitled to it. So he's not sure where the sudden discomfort stems from.

In the chair, Sam rests his chin on his elbow, eyes slipping closed.

Perhaps, perhaps- in the Pit, it's not as if alcohol was really a thing. Not to drink, anyway. But he'll never forget the first sick joyful rush as he got off that rack and gazed down at the first soul, fresh and glassy-eyed, that he'd ever slice into. And he'd never been able to top that feeling, not with sex or drugs or alcohol- not with ten years in the Pit. Not until he had Sam tied to a chair and bleeding.

Maybe he won't get drunk tonight. Maybe he won't get drunk for a while.

*  
They're quiet that night, not even trying to acknowledge all they've left unspoken, parting with a cursory ''Night'. The next morning Dean wakes at seven and gets to the kitchen to find the coffee maker still warm; he's surprised. Sam usually sleeps in these days.

It only takes half an hour for him to go and look for him.

He has an inkling, and it's right: Sam's in the room where he himself woke up memory-less. His back's to the door and, like a good hunter, he jumps when Dean shoves open the door.

'What you up to?' he says, trying for lightness. He's not sure if suspicion enters his voice anyway, because Sam sits back on his heels and exhales.

'Just looking through this stuff. Thought I might be able to shed some light, y'know? If I found what took your memories.'

'Careful,' he says. He goes to kneel beside him. Sam's hands are folded like doves in his lap. 'I don't want you to get hurt.'

Sam looks at him, then. 'That's nice of you.'

He digs through a cardboard box to come up with something wrapped in yellowing newspaper. They unpeel it to find a solid golden apple. Dean whistles, weighing it in his palm; it's shockingly heavy. 'Dude. We could make a _killing_.'

Sam grabs for it. 'Dean, don't touch it. You have no idea what is or isn't cursed in here.'

'Relax, it's still in the paper.'

Dean helps Sam hunt through esoterica for nearly an hour, getting boxes off shelves for him and helping unpack them. They don't talk, mostly because he doesn't know what to say, and he's not sure why he's doing this. Maybe just because Sam's got no-one else. Maybe being this close to him with guilt chewing up his insides is some weird subliminal penance thing. By the time Sam yawns, they've only gone through a fraction of the relics.

Sam tucks hair behind his ears, hands shaky. 'What time is it?'

'Eight. Wanna call it a day?'

For a moment Sam looks like he's going to say no, but then his shoulders slump. 'Yeah, okay.'

They get to their feet, leaving the stuff all jumbled up on the floor. It feels strange for Dean to just turn his back and leave it in a mess. He's done nothing but clean up after himself his whole life, from making the motel beds military-style to watching his brother jump into Hell.

'Weird, isn't it,' says Sam quietly. 'That all this is- ours. I'm still kinda waiting for someone to come along and take it from us.'

'Not happening,' says Dean. 'What I have, I hold.'

And Sam gives him another one of those looks, something just between wonder and betrayal. Suddenly Dean's itching to get away from him. Fingers twitch with the sense-memory of Sam's skin translated by the edge of a knife. He has these odd moments sometimes, ever since getting back from Hell, where Sam just repulses him for no particular reason, when he feels like just turning on him and yelling every untrue hurtful thing he's ever thought.

It's not fair. It doesn't even make him feel better. It's one of the things that he feels like shit over without actually blaming himself for; even he's able to realise that he's having these feelings completely against his will.

'Hey, Dean,' says Sam.

He looks up. Sam's gone all doe-eyed. He cringes inwardly, knowing what's coming.

'I think we should talk about this,' says Sam, and there it is, there's that sweet gentle all-forgiving bullshit that seems to be Sam's M.O more and more often these days and sometimes he just wants to grab him by the shoulders and fucking shake him, shake some sense into his head and-

Okay. No. No no no no no.

He blinks.

'I think we both know you're not okay,' Sam's saying. 'And I'm not okay either. What happened messed us both up, but I think you know we were both pretty fucking messed up long before that. And that's never gonna change.'

It's a conscious effort but he forces himself to see past all that bareness, all Sam's painful vulnerability, and here's the thing- what he's saying makes sense. Of course it does; Sam's a genius. But- still.

'Hey,' Sam says, putting a hand on his wrist. 'We on the same page?'

He nods.

'Good. You need to stay that way. Come on.'

Sam's hand closes round his wrist and begins to tug, and before he knows what's happening Sam's leading him down the corridor, up the stairs (wincing on each one and Dean's heart contracts), back all the way up to the library, where he pushes him down into a chair and then sits down himself.

'I wanna lay it all out for you,' says Sam. He gives a moment for that to sink in.

'What happened wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault that you went to Hell- don't look at me like that, it wasn't- and it sure as shit wasn't your fault that you started torturing.'

'Oh, I am not drunk enough for this.' He makes to get up. Sam stops him. 'You're sober, huh?'

' _Yeah_.'

'Then you're drunk enough. Listen to me _. It wasn't your fault_. It wasn't your fault that you found whatever stupid curse you found in the storeroom because being dumb isn't the same as being evil. Because maybe you should have expected but you could never have known. Because you might be reckless but you have _never_ been evil.'

'Sam,' says Dean. His voice comes out hoarse. 'Sam, don't.'

'No,' and Sam's eyes have the same look in them as when he stood up to Dean whilst being tortured, the same feirceness, and how could he have ever thought Sam was weak? 'No, Dean, we're going there. We should have had this conversation a long time ago. I'm sorry it took this to bring us to it, but that's just how it goes.

'We're both the victims here, and that's shitty. It's shitty that someone in our distant past fucked us over and now I'm lowkey nuts and you kind of like beating stuff up. It's shitty that our life is one massive low-rent slasher flick. What's not shitty is what we've managed to manage to salvage from that.'

'What do you mean,' says Dean, because he's not sure he can say anything else.

Sam looks at him in wonder. He reaches across the table and takes Dean's hand, and after a moment Dean lets him. 'Look around you. Look at me. Look at you. Look at what you went through and you're still _good_. Yes-' when Dean snorts- 'you are, okay? And the same goes for me. It's not about what's done to you, okay, it's about your choices. You're the one who taught me that.'

Dean finds his voice. 'Well, that's beautiful, Sam, but you're overlooking the part where I have consistently picked the _wrong_ choice.'

'Only when you couldn't help it,' says Sam staunchly. His grip tightens around Dean's fingers. 'And that means it wasn't a choice at all.'

'No,' he says. He pulls his hand back, and Sam flinches. 'No, Sam, that's bullshit. Maybe I couldn't help it in Hell, okay, I'll give myself that one. But with hurting you? Are you fucking kidding me?'

Sam's silent.

'I had a choice there,' he said. 'Or, you know what? It was obvious what any normal person would do. And it doesn't include torture. That came out of the blue, Sam, out of _my brain_ , and I chose it without even thinking. That is not a _good_ man. That's a guy who falls off the wagon at the first goddamn opportunity. That's a guy who some part of him _misses_ being a sadistic prick under Alastair's thumb. That's a guy who's never felt more alive than when he's got a toasting fork buried in someone's spleen, okay, and that is _not alright_. That's a matter of me _choosing_ to do the thing that I know is wrong, Sam, and you can say that's not my fault but do you even believe that yourself? Because you sounded pretty mad at me before.'

Sam scrubs a hand over his face. 'I'd just woken up, Dean. First thing I saw was the guy who'd made me pass out. I was pretty disoriented, okay? And, I dunno, I kind of expected you to just pick up the knife and get back to slicing, y'know? It took me a while to get my thoughts in order.'

'Yeah, well, whatever,' he says. He gets to his feet. There's tears in Sam's eyes, and something's tugging at him but he doesn't know what.

'Ain't rocket science, Sam,' he says. God, he's tired. 'There's a victim and a perpetrator here, okay? For once. And I picked my role over and over and over.'

Unable to look at Sam's face, he starts to walk, heading for his own room. He forces himself to go slower than he wants to because he can just imagine how Sam's eyes would look if he started running to get away from him, and he's halfway down the corridor when he hears Sam's voice again.

'I was hotwiring a car.'

He freezes. Turns. 'What?'

And there's no reply.

Dean walks back down to the kitchen. Sam's eyes are on the table. He's toying with a strand of his hair.

He says, very slowly, 'When were you hotwiring a car, Sam?'

'Yesterday.' Voice low. 'You went for supplies. I sat around for a bit. Couldn't make my mind up. And I just felt like everything in me wanted to get out, to just escape, y'know, so I- I found this car and I got it open and I hotwired it.'

'What made you change your mind?' His voice is shaky.

Sam shrugs. 'My stitches. How much you'd blame yourself if I left.'

'Oh, is that all?' Where the hell is the sarcasm coming from? He's never felt less of a smartass in his life.

Finally Sam looks him square in the face. ' I'd miss you.'

Dean doesn't say anything.

'Dean,' Sam says, all earnestness, 'I'm not saying that what you did wasn't wrong or anything and I'm not saying we haven't both made mistakes. I'm not saying it's okay that you tied me to a chair and cut me up. We have both done some- _deplorable_ things. But I know one thing for certain and if you'd been in your right mind at that moment, if you'd had all your peices, you'd have gone to Hell a thousand times before you laid a hand on me.'

'But I did lay a hand on you,' he says. 'Kinda more than a hand. And, Sam, that's not the sort of stuff you just forgive, you know?'

Sam shakes his head. 'That wasn't you. You were missing something. You let me off the hook for the crap I pulled while I was soulless, right? How is this any different?'

'Uh, because I had a freaking _soul_?'

'But it wasn't _you_! You weren't all there! We're not just our basic components, Dean, okay? We're the sum of what's happened to us. You _can't_ blame yourself for that.'

'Yeah? Watch me.'

Sam stands up, pushing the chair back. He's pinching the skin between his eyes. 'Dean, you are- the _most_ frustrating person to argue with. Why can't you just accept what I'm trying to say to you for once in your life?'

And because Dean can give as good as he gets he stands up too. 'Because I _hurt_ you. And you know why? Because I wanted to! Because the second I had the tiniest excuse I started picking out knives! Because I freaking _molested_ you and because if all that shit's what makes up my basic components then, fuck it, maybe I don't want all those _components_!'

Sam's eyes narrowing. Dean realises he's made a mistake; Sam's doing that thing where he seems to zoom in on you. ' _Molested_?' he pronounces. 'So _that's_ what this is about?'

'No!' Dean puts his face in his hands. 'No, it's not. I just meant-'

'Dude, you realise I'm a consenting adult, right? And that I'm not totally weak yet? I could have told you to shove the fuck off, you know.'

'Yeah. I know. But-'

'And, Dean? Maybe that _is_ what makes up your basic components. I can't see inside your head.'

'Sam-'

'You can't help what you are. You _can_ help what you do. And you would never normally have made the choice to hurt me. We both know that, so cut the crap. If you're blaming yourself for an innate bloodthirst or whatever this is then, hell, maybe I should start blaming myself for having demon blood.'

'Sam. C'mon.'

'No? I thought not.'

Sam sits down again. He lays his hands flat on the table, palms up. There's something imploring about the shape of his fingers.

'Let's just put this behind us, Dean,' he says. 'Please.'

Dean looks at Sam for a long time. He feels like he's on the edge of something, like he might have been there for a long time, unknowingly. But there's still something that just refuses to break, to submit, to let whatever this is just ride. He spilled blood and he must pay, and that's not something that changes according to the assignation of blame.

'No, Sammy, I can't, and I'm sorry.'

His voice is gentle and Sam's eyes well up.

'I don't get it,' he says. 'If our roles were reversed here I bet this conversation would be exactly the same. Why can't we give ourselves any damn quarter here, Dean? It's over. Why can't we just let ourselves rest for a change? Why is it one mission after another after another til we find the one that kills us?'

'You know why,' is all Dean can say. 'Sam, you _know_ why.'

Sam nods, brushing furiously at his eyes, turning his head to the side. Dean gets a strange sense of glimpsing a past Sam through the gesture, a Sam who drank blood from demons' necks and screamed at him in a way this Sam never would.

'Sam,' he says, needing to placate, to convince, 'if you could see what I think about sometimes, if you could see the stuff in my dreams-'

'I wouldn't care,' says Sam, half-crying. 'Dean, I wouldn't care. I love you and I _wouldn't care_. I just want you to be happy. Please just let yourself be happy.'

'If you could see,' he says, a lump crawling up his throat. 'You'd never get it out of your mind. You'd never think about me the same way. If you just had one look-'

'Don't need to,' and Sam's eyes are wet and shining. 'I've never needed too. It's in my head too. I went to Hell too. We're the only people on earth who get what the other's been through, Dean, don't you get it? That's why I didn't get into that fucking car and drive the fuck away. That's why we come back to each other again and again and again.'

'But,' says Dean, no longer knowing what he's going to say in reply. He's pretty sure there's tears on his cheeks. But he doesn't need to think of anything because then Sam's coming round the edge of the table and putting his hands on Dean's face and pressing their mouths together and he doesn't even think _this is a kiss_ , all he thinks is that Sam's wet eyelashes are the softest thing in the world and that suddenly everything tastes like tears and how that should feel so so much worse than it does.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incidentally, I don't think Supernatural is either low-rent or a slasher flick. But you can understand how Sam might. Sorry for the wait, guys, and comments are love.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look, guys, it's nc-17!

In the end it's Dean who can only open his mouth, too shocked to do anything else, and it's Sam who's walking them backwards into the wall. It's Sam who pulls away after a few moments and Dean can only look at him, look at his bitten-red lips and for a moment he nearly recoils because this Sam is one he's only seen in passing. This guy belongs to Jessica, to Madison, to all those pretty girls with their long hair and their nice manners, and for a second doing this seems beyond rational thought.

And then Sam does this thing. He cocks his head a little, looks at Dean curiously, and there's so much of _Sam_ in that, so much that Dean can see echoing right back to the lanky bright-eyed kid he picked up from Stanford all those years ago, and something about that makes this suddenly feel okay. 'Sam,' he says, and rounds on him, pressing his hands into Sam's shoulders, crowding him up against the wall. 'Sam. Are you-? Are you on board here?'

'Oh yeah,' says Sam, breathing hard. 'Yeah, I think so.' He slides down the wall a little. 'You're. Um. Cool with this, then? You aren't going to freak?'

'Not gonna make any promises,' says Dean. 'But, uh. I'll give it my best.'

He kisses Sam, then, sliding his hands round the back of Sam's neck to pull him down, biting gently at his lower lip, and Sam smiles against his mouth.

 

They move it to Dean's room and he closes the door behind them when they walk in, reflexive, but Sam hesitates. Then, 'No,' he says, 'Leave it open, Dean, leave it open,' so they leave it open.

Sam sits on the edge of the bed, looking a little nervous, a little unsure, and his leg's jittering up and down. Dean sits down beside him and closes a hand over Sam's knee, stilling it, and Sam looks very grateful and maybe kind of sad.

'We don't have to,' says Dean. 'It's cool, Sam. Whatever you want, however you want, it's cool. Okay?'

Sam's eyes go all soft and shiny at that. He lies back on the bed, wincing at the pull on his stitches, and Dean takes that as an invitation. He crouches over Sam's body, leaning down to kiss the ghostly arch of his hipbone, and Sam smiles a little. Lets his legs fall open- when Dean withdraws, Sam reaches down to pull off his jeans and boxers, kicking them off, and then Dean's kind of speechless. Faced with a million miles of skinny vulnerable Sam-legs, the curve of his half-erect cock, the soft dark trail of hair just visible below his shirt, he's not sure what to do. His hands drift up Sam's calves, fingers settling in the pale grooves of his knees.

It's a moment before he registers that Sam's starting to look uncomfortable, starting to fold his legs together- and wouldn't he feel exposed like that, only wearing a shirt, so much more exposed than being fully naked?

Dean steps back, letting Sam's legs slip closed, and takes off his shirt. He shucks his jeans at the same time, hopping to get out of them just to make Sam chuckle, and when he's naked he stands for a moment, letting Sam see everything. The freckles scattered where his skin's palest. His dick hanging heavy between his legs. The scars, silvered and streaked and ugly. The powerful hinge of muscle where neck meets shoulder. He lifts his head, and knows that the light glints off sandy-brown and grey hairs alike.

Sam's looking at him, eyes glued to his face, and there's this look in them, and it makes Dean want to cry. Sam's looking at him with this weird hopeful trust that he's never seen before, not ever, with these eyes that _say I know what you're doing and I'm so glad you're doing it and I love you_. And say _no matter what happens in this room and no matter how it changes us and no matter what you think of me and no matter what they think of us I love you_. Dean's face starts to buckle; right then and there, standing nude in the lamplight with his brother laid out like a specimen butterfly on his bed, and he watches Sam's throat (his beautiful chrysalis throat) tighten with concern. With sympathy.

He steps forward, half-expecting the floor to be uneven.

When he touches Sam's thighs, Sam lets him move them apart. It's pretty distracting to have his cock _right there_ , but Dean takes a moment. To look at his tanned and calloused hands digging into the pale flesh of Sam's thighs. To trace the soft bluish bleedings of his veins beneath the skin, and 'Dean,' says Sam in this quiet quiet voice.

He looks up. Aches to rub his nose against the delicate point of Sam's. He'd always found the shape of Sam's nose so _cute_. 'Yeah?'

'Do you have any,' and Sam clears his throat, 'stuff?'

 _Ah_. Dean winks. 'First rule of buttsex, Sammy. You can never use too much lube, and _always_ take a shower.'

'I'm pretty sure that's two rules,' says Sam, but he shifts to one side so that Dean can rummage in his bedside table.

After a second, 'Jackpot,' he says, coming up with a bottle of lube and a condom. Sam immediately snatches the condom out of his hand, fumbles it open. His fingertips graze the head of Dean's dick when he rolls it on, and Dean can't suppress a shiver.

Sam lies back again, propping himself up on his elbows.

'Are you sure you want to do it this way?' asks Dean carefully.

Sam fixes him with a look. It's another Sam-look. 'I'm sure,' he says.

But Sam's still got his shirt on- it's been at the back of Dean's mind for the past few minutes, and he's starting to get an idea of why. He lets his hands go to its buttons, but as he starts undoing the top one Sam's hand comes up to close around his wrist.

'I'd rather you didn't,' says Sam softly. 'Please. I'd really rather you didn't, Dean.'

'Trust me,' says Dean, and he leans down to drop another kiss on Sam's mouth, and then, finally, the tip of his nose. 'It's nothing I haven't seen before. Trust me.' After a moment Sam's hand falls away, and Dean undoes the buttons on his shirt, one by one.

As he gets farther down, the shirt slipping open, Sam seems to fight against the impulse to move, and when he closes his eyes Dean kisses his eyelids one after the other. By the time he reaches the last button both their hands are shaking. Finally the shirt falls to the side.

Sam's torso is wrapped in clingfilm over the skin graft, the scar showing long and black and ugly and the cuts over his torso crisscrossing, scabbed and brown and bruised, and okay, it's not a pretty sight, of course it's not a pretty fucking sight, and it takes a moment before Dean can put the onrush of guilt on hold, and Sam breathes in so deep his sternum shifts. Dean lays a hand on it and Sam's eyes find his and there's fear in them and a _horrifying_ amount of trust and then he sees that one single mole below Sam's shoulder and he touches it with a fingertip and a small odd noise breaks free of them both.

It's a cue, maybe. Dean squirts lube into his hand, coating his fingers with it, and waits for Sam to spread his legs- and eventually, after a moment, Sam does, lying flat against the pillows, hitching up his legs so they're bent at the knee. Dean takes that in, takes in the openness of his body- has he ever seen Sam like this before?- and the ridiculous coltish bracing of legs and he's not sure when this started feeling so _ultimate_ , and he's not sure when he got fully hard, he's not sure how any of this happened- in which of their thousand pitstops he first began to feel this many-headed thing for his baby brother, and then a thought comes to him and he says 'Sam, are you even supposed to be doing this with your stitches and all?'

And Sam, God bless him, just tilts his legs open wider and says 'We're already AM-fucking-A, Dean, just get the hell on with it, will you?'

So Dean does. He takes Sam's ankles in his hands and moves them even farther apart, and he reaches down to spread Sam's ass, brushing his dusky-pink hole with a thumb, and Sam squeezes his eyes closed. His ribs rise and fall.

Dean squeezes lube into his palm, coating his fingers with it, pressing a big dollop up to Sam's hole. It's cold and Sam makes a quiet noise of surprise. Dean slicks up his other hand, slides it over Sam's cock to keep him hard, and eases the tip of his first finger in.

'You okay?' he says.

'Yeah. Yeah.'

Dean opens him up as slow as he can, fitting in first one finger, then two, then three. Neither of them asks the other if they've done this before, and for that he's glad. Sweat starts out on his collarbone at the feeling of Sam's insides clamping down on his fingers, and there's a flush breaking over Sam's neck and chest and cheeks, and when Dean gets his fingers as far as he can into that soft tight heat and presses down in a certain way Sam's whole body shudders, head falling back, hair fanning over the pillow.

They don't speak. Dean's usually a talker, a sweet-smooth-dirty talker, but not here, not now. When he pulls out his fingers he lays his palm against Sam's throat, two fingers splayed careful over his Adam's apple, asking for reassurance, and Sam meets his eyes and smiles.

He lubes up his dick with one hand, lines up, begins to push in. Sam's hands fasten round Dean's biceps, fingers digging in and Dean can feel him trying to relax around Dean's cock and that clench-unclench of muscles is driving him crazy, blood throbbing in his groin, and he shoves all the way in involuntarily, punching a groan out of them both.

'Jesus Christ,' says Sam in a shaky voice, after a moment. 'Just, uh- give me a second.' Dean holds off moving, can feel the place where Sam's rim stretches around his dick as Sam shifts a little, hand on his clingfilm-wrapped stomach, and manages to relax just enough for Dean to pull out a little and slide back in.

It takes a few minutes before they find a rhythm. It's not screw-your-brains-out wild, but it's deep and slow and Dean's as gentle as he can, making his lesiurely way to find that sweet aching spot within Sam, and somehow the surreality of the situation has been swallowed into the shine of sweat on Sam's closed eyelids. Dean kisses the inside of Sam's knees as he works his hand on his cock and his brother's arm falls back as he comes, covering his eyes, fingers limp and curled towards the ceiling.

Dean comes sudden and unexpected, clinging to Sam with everything he has, Sam stroking his back with shaking hands.

They lie there where they've collapsed, listening to each other breathing, aware of the stink of sex that crouches in the room. Dean strokes through Sam's hair only once before getting up to wipe them off with half a packet of tissues. By the time he lies back down Sam's already asleep, chest rising and falling slowly.

He kisses the inside of his brother's wrists. Once. Twice.

*

Dean wakes first. They'd left the lamp on, and its glow burnishes Sam's eyelashes. He checks his watch; eight O'clock. They've slept in.

Sam doesn't begin to wake until Dean gets off the bed, and it's his manner of waking that reminds Dean that he's sick- the lethargy, the clumsiness as he rubs at his eyes. But that's okay. That's something they can fix.

'Mornin', sweetheart,' he drawls, infusing his voice with as much sarcastic twang as he can, and Sam paws at his eyes again, grinning through a yawn. 'Seriously?'

Dean winks.

In the kitchen, Sam settles into a chair. Dean starts looking through the cupboards, because he's hungrier than he remembers being in ages, and after a minute Sam's voice comes. 'So what are we going to do?'

'What?' Dean calls. He's got his head buried in a cupboard, looking for flour.

'About this. About-' Dean can just picture Sam's hands waving dramatically- 'us. What are going to do?'

He finds the flour. Sets it on the table, and sits down beside Sam, meeting his eyes.

'I'm only gonna say this once,' he says. 'I want to carry on. With this- thing. Whatever this is. And judging by last night, I'd say that- you do, too. Yeah?'

Sam's eyes are trained on him, unblinking.

'But if you don't,' he goes on, 'or if you've changed your mind, or- whatever- then just say. Okay? Just say. And we can stop, or- you can leave, even, if that'll make you happy.'

'It wouldn't,' says Sam. 'You know that.'

'Well- okay.' He clears his throat; stands. 'What I'm trying to say, Sam- whatever you give me, I'll take it. I'll always take it. But you don't have to give me anything. We clear?'

'I think so,' says Sam. He's staring at the table. 'Only I'm kinda confused. I expected you to be freaking out about. You know. The incest thing? Maybe? _What would Dad say, this is wrong, you're my little brother_ sort of stuff?

'Yeah,' says Dean, and pauses. Thinks. He looks round to find Sam's eyes. 'I dunno. I mean- before all this amnesia crap happened- but I dunno. And after what you said yesterday- and after last night. I think- I mean, when it comes down to it, it's us, right? It's you and me. And that- doesn't feel wrong.'

'It doesn't feel wrong to me either,' says Sam. 'I don't think it could.'

'Good. I mean, I can't say for the future, y'know? I may or may not have a meltdown at some point about all this. But if I ever do, you might just wanna punch me.'

'Not _punch_ you,' says Sam meditatively. 'But I could get on board with 'lightly slap'.'

He looks at Dean, and all Dean's breath goes out of him at what's behind Sam's eyes, at what's living behind Sam's eyes.

He lays his hand over his brother's.

'Lightly slap' it is,' he says, and at the look Sam gives him he knows- it's going to be tough, of course it fucking is, it's always tough. Sam's still sick and Dean's still wrecked and they've both got a shit-ton of issues, but. But. As long as Sam can still give him that look.

They're going to be okay. They survive; it's what they do. And this new layer to the thing that's always been between them is just something else that they've got to keep safe, to hold and heal past fragility and uneasiness, to get them to a place where Dean can lean over and kiss Sam on the point of his nose every goddamned morning.

To get them back here, time after time. He leans over. Kisses Sam on the nose.

Right here.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are everything, buds <3 thanks for all your support in the writing of this beast.
> 
> i'm @prunesquallors on twitter, if u want to hear me moan about writing on an hourly basis. <3


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